Till grade 7th, I used to think that mythology is very boring. I believe that children think that mythology books come in thick volumes with no illustrations. When I was small, I used to get bored. However now on the contrary I feel that reading mythology is quite a lot of fun. If narrated correctly and nicely, then they sure are some good books to read. These mythological stories involve peculiar logics which pave the way for very bizarre situations.
One such story I read goes as follows : Once Ravanna was meditating and was praying to Lord Shiva. So, Lord Shiva got pleased and gave him a boon. He asked for a Shivlinga which when he would place on Lanka, Lanka would become invincible. However there was this one condition that wherever he would place this Shivlinga, the Shivlinga would not ever budge thereafter. Ravanna Took the Shivlinga along with him and flew towards Lanka in his Pushpak-vimana. When all the other Gods came to know about this, they prayed to Lord Ganesha for help. Lord Ganesha did something quite strange. He caused an urge to urinate in Ravanna. Ravanna suppressed this urge for a long time but finally, he gave up. He stopped, landed back on Earth with the Shivlinga still in his hand. He handed over the Shivlinga to a farmer standing nearby and told him not to place it on the ground. Then, he went to urinate. Ganesh then with his powers did such a thing that Ravanna kept on urinating. After some time, the farmer got tired and had to place the Shivlinga on the ground and thus, Ganesha had saved everyone.
Such stories are very small instances in our Indian epics and they filled with such stories. There are many characters of different shapes and sizes in such stories. Some are three-legged demons, angels with wings, creatures emitting fire and much more. Such stories are not only interesting but they also leave a message. They are usually filled with wisdom. Mahabharata talks a lot about wisdom, intelligence, ethics and greed. In such stories, there are quite a lot of twists.
Did anyone know that all the Pandavas went to Narakha(hell) while all the Kauravas went to Swarga(heaven)? This was so because the person who had tilled the battlefield, had asked for a boon that stated that whosoever died on that field would be granted entry to Swarga. There is also one more reason to it that after winning the war, all the Pandavas got way too much proud. Arjuna was jealous of any good archer other than him. Bhima became a glutton and had put on weight.
Another great instance that shows wisdom is as follows:
Yudhisthir liked to gamble and lost all his brothers in the bet. We all know about his but some may not know that he gambled his cousin brothers first and not his blood-related brothers first. We all might also know that Yudhisthir had saved all his brothers woh had died drinking water from the pond. It was so because the pond had asked first to refrain from drinking the water and answer his questions. However, nobody listened and they all died. When Yudhisthir reached there and answered all the pond’s questions which were quite meaningful correctly, the pond was pleased and asked him that which brother would he want to be revived, he took the name of one of his cousin brother and not his blood-related brothers. The pond asked him that why he took his name, he replied that earlier he had gambled his cousin brothers first and not his blood-related brother. Therefore, now to maintain the balance, he wanted to revive one of his cousin brother in order to maintain the balance. This answer pleased the pond and he revived all his brothers.
Such incidents leave a effect when you read them. Now I would write about something which makes a point and also contradicts itself.
Humankind is one of the greatest race in the universe. Children are always taught moral values, ethics, appropriate conduct but is the right way of living?
“Honesty is the best policy”- some may say but I think that sometimes we may be in a situation which could contradict this saying. I would like to talk about Karna, a character from the epic, The Mahabarata.
Karna was a Kshatriya and the son of a charioteer but loved archery. However he being the son of a charioteer was not able to get trained in archery. Therefore in order to learn archery, he disguised himself as a brahmin and went to Parashurama to learn archery. Parashurama taught him. One day, Parashurama was sleeping and had kept his head on Karna’s lap. Suddenly Karna felt unease and looked at his feet. He saw that an earthworm was eating his flesh. However, Karna did not move an inch so that his master his could sleep peacefully. When Parashurama woke up and saw his injury, he asked that why did he not wake him up and helped himself. Karna said that he didn’t want to disturb Parashurama and thus did not wake him up. This alone was enough to know that was a loyal and dedicated student. However, Parashurama got red with anger and said that only a Kshatriya can do what Karna had done and thus his true identity was revealed. Therefore, Parashurama cursed him that whenever he would need his skills of archery the most, it would be the time that he would forget it. This curse eventually led to his death in the field of Kurukshetra.
I now would like to talk about a different instance in Karna’s life. Karna loved archery but being a charioteer’s son, he was not allowed to study or participate in competitions. He was regarded as an outcast in the eyes of the Pandavas because he was the son of a charioteer but Duryodhan accepted him as an equal because of his skills. As the epic progressed, he came to know that he was actually a brother of the Pandavas. However, he chose to take the side of the Kauravas as Duryodhan had helped him during his bad times while the Pandavas had not. However even after doing such great acts of loyalty, he still met death at the end of the day.
Another great quality of Karna was that he promoted charity a lot and always selflessly gave things in charity. There have been stories about him that once a man asked him for wood to burn in order to survive the winter night and Karna axed his whole house down to provide him with wood. Another instance was that when he was dying and was breathing his last breaths, Krishna had disguised as a beggar and begged Karna for food. Karna told him that he had gold tooth and that he could uproot it and sell it to buy food. Thus, Karna had remained dann-veer till his last breath.
I think that after performing all these great deeds listed above why should a man face such consequences. Isn’t it unfair. I think that what happened with Karna was not right.
I would like now to talk about a play which was performed on the founder’s day of Scindia School which was known as “Charandas- The Thief”. The story revolved around a thief who decided and vowed certain things. However, due to circumstances, he faced many problems in which his commitment towards his vows were tested. He emerged successful as he did not break his vows but protecting his vows led to his death.
The question I pondered upon was that is it necessary to safeguard our ethics, morals because in both the cases we observed that loyalty served them no good. What would have had they felt when even after being loyal and innocent, they met with an undesirable fate. We all know the law of karma-“What goes around comes around” but is it really the truth?
On the other hand, we have sayings like-“Rules are meant to be broken”. This may seem childish to many but I think that they too have a purpose. Many times, people may find a situation where they could not safeguard their ideals and had to lower their guard.
By saying this I do not mean to promote rebellion or manner-less people. I seek to know that whatever we do in life, is it morally and ethically correct or not? Have we yet understood to differentiate between right and wrong things? Have we yet understood humanity and a person’s appropriate conduct in it?
All these I came to know by reading about Mahabharata written by Devdutt Pattnaik. He is also from Odisha. The best part that I liked about his book was that it had quite a lot of good number of illustrations to engage myself in. I like to draw so I also drew those illustrations as I read along.
Reading is a very great habit. I would suggest you all to try mythology as it is not so boring. You might also learn something about our heritage.