Don’t Know Much About® Mythology (49 page)

Vishnu, the Preserver
One of the main gods of Hinduism, Vishnu has a kindly nature, and is called the Preserver by worshippers who believe that he tries to ensure the welfare of humanity.
In the complexity of Hindu mythology, Vishnu creates, preserves, and destroys the world over and over in a pattern of yugas, which are ages of time. The current period is called the Kali-Yuga, a dark age characterized by dissension, war, and strife, in which materialism rules desires, virtue is nonexistent, and the only pleasure is found in sex. Vishnu sometimes descends from heaven to the earth as one of his avatars when the universe faces a catastrophe or when humanity needs comfort and guidance. In several myths, he must battle some sort of
asura
(demon) who is threatening either the gods or the universal order. While Vishnu has countless avatars, or physical incarnations, these ten are considered of principal importance:

Matsya
is the fish avatar who plays a role in the story of Manu, the first man, by warning him of the flood that is coming.


 


Kurma
is the tortoise avatar who supports a sacred mountain on his back during a battle with demons.


 


Varaha
, the boar avatar, uses his tusks to lift the earth, in the form of a beautiful woman, out of the ocean after she falls in. In another version, a demon who has stolen the Vedas pushes the earth into the sea, and the boar rescues the earth and the sacred scriptures with its tusks.


 


Narasimha
, the half-man-half-lion avatar, kills the invulnerable demon who brings terror to the world.


 


Vamana
, the dwarf-priest avatar, tricks an
asura
by requesting the amount of land he could cover in three steps. The demon, named Bali, agrees, and Vishnu assumes his full size, covers the whole earth in two steps, and crushes Bali with the third step.


 


Parashurama
is a brave human of the Brahmin caste who carries a great battle-ax given to him by Shiva to punish all those in the warrior caste (Kshatriyas) who have become arrogant and are suppressing the Brahmins. In winning twenty-one battles, Parashurama proves the supremacy of Brahmins.


 


Rama
, who is usually depicted as a king carrying a bow and arrow, is a popular mortal hero in Hinduism and the central figure in the
Ramayana
(see below).


 


Krishna
is Vishnu’s other divine avatar, and the central character in the
Mahabharata
and the Bhagavad-Gita, in which he assumes the role of Arjuna’s charioteer and they engage in lengthy philosophical discourse (see below).


 


Buddha
is the only avatar who can be connected to an actual historical person—the great religious teacher who founded Buddhism (see below). Scholars suggest that Buddha was made an avatar in order to bring his worshippers back into the Hindu fold.


 


Kalki
is the coming avatar who will end the current evil age (Kali-Yuga). In an apocalyptic vision, Kalki will ride a white horse and carry a great sword to punish all evildoers in this world, and usher in a new Golden Age.


 

What kind of hero doesn’t want to fight?

A war epic might seem like an unlikely favorite of one of the twentieth century’s most notable apostles of nonviolence. But Mahatma Gandhi (1869–1948), the leader of the peaceful resistance movement that secured India’s independence from England in 1947, was said to be profoundly influenced by the Indian poem of war and peace, the
Mahabharata
.

Presumably based on a much older oral tradition,
Mahabharata
was first recorded between 500 and 400 BCE and was continually refined and edited until as late as 500 CE. At least four times the length of the Bible, it recounts an epic feud between two related families—the Pandavas and the Kauravas—who are the descendants of King Bharata. Over centuries, the word “Bharata” has become synonymous with India, so the epic is considered the story of India itself. Although some of the poem’s heroes are taken from history, the dating of the war it is said to be based on—once placed at 3102 BCE—has now been discredited.

One relatively small but enormously important piece of the
Mahabharata
is the beloved Hindu scripture, Bhagavad-Gita (“song of the lord or blessed one”). The hero of the Bhagavad-Gita is the warrior hero Arjuna, the “Achilles” of the Pandavas—the semidivine son of the ancient god Indra and a mortal woman. As Arjuna prepares to do battle in the ongoing war between the Pandavas and Kauravas, he has an extended conversation with the god Krishna, who has taken on the role of Arjuna’s friend and chariot driver. Arjuna is caught in a moral dilemma which he voices in the opening of Bhagavad-Gita. As a member of the warrior caste, Arjuna knows he must defend his brother, the king. However, arrayed on the opposing side are his cousins, other relatives, and teachers, and he is frozen by the thought of killing these acquaintances and relatives for the reward of a kingdom.

As Arjuna wonders what to do, Krishna teaches him—in eighteen-verse chapters as the battle awaits—that people can achieve freedom by following their prescribed duty without attachment to the results of their action. Summing up the Gita, religious historian Peter Occhiogrosso wrote, “Its chief moral argument is that bodies can be killed, but not souls. Since warfare is Arjuna’s dharma, or class duty, it’s all in a day’s work.” As Lord Krishna tells Arjuna, “It is better to die engaged in one’s own duty, however badly, than to do another’s well.”

Ultimately, Krishna reveals himself to Arjuna in his universal form: all-devouring time. Recognizing his duty, Arjuna rejoins the battle. Fought over eighteen days, the battle claims the lives of many heroes on both sides. Finally, largely due to some devious tactics suggested by Krishna, the Pandavas emerge victorious.

Why would a hero banish his loving wife?

How pure and perfect must a devoted wife be to please her husband—and the neighbors? That question is central to the
Ramayana
, the second of India’s two great epic poems. At about one-quarter the length of the
Mahabharata
, it is also more accessible and has been popular for centuries. Set in Adodhya, in northern India, and featuring Rama, the seventh avatar of Vishnu and the oldest son and heir of an Indian king, the poem, like other popular hero legends and folktales, is the story of a dispossessed prince, victim of an evil stepmother.

The trials of Rama begin when his stepmother demands that her own son, Bharata, Rama’s half-brother, rule as king. Rama’s father has promised his wife a wish, and must concede. Rama dutifully accepts his role—his dharma—and is forced into exile, living in the forest for the next fourteen years with his devoted and beautiful wife, Sita—bound by her dharma to remain with her husband—and his loyal brother, Lakshmana. (Bharata, meanwhile, recognizes Rama’s right to rule. He places his half-brother’s sandals on the throne and agrees to rule from a small village until the day Rama returns.)

While in the forest, Sita is abducted by the demon king Ravana, who takes her to his island kingdom of Lanka (identified as what is now Sri Lanka, once known as Ceylon). Rama goes to war against Ravana and his armies, enlisting the aid of monkey troops led by the shape-shifting monkey general Hanuman. One of the most popular of Indian gods, Hanuman is a gifted healer with supernatural powers who understands the curative qualities of herbs. Rama defeats the forces of Ravana, kills Ravana with an arrow, and rescues Sita. But Rama is initially skeptical of Sita’s faithfulness to him. After she undergoes a trial by fire and proves her innocence, Rama takes her back and they return to Adodhya, where Rama is consecrated as a king.

But even then, in the last book of the
Ramayana
, there is gossip about Sita’s “infidelity.” Knowing the rumors are unfounded, but feeling duty-bound as ruler to respect the people’s wishes, Rama banishes Sita, who is pregnant. Having suffered so much, Sita asks Mother Earth to recall her, the ground opens beneath her, and she vanishes forever. Dividing his kingdom between his two sons, Rama enters a river and yields his life, merging his human existence back with the divine Vishnu.

What is Nirvana?

No, not Kurt Cobain’s band. The concept of being peaceful and blessed that describes one’s state of mind. A state without desire. Of perfection. In Buddhism. But wait. That’s getting ahead of the story.

By the 500s BCE, the Brahminism, which had evolved out of Indian myth, was undergoing the usual growing pains that occur when faithful followers take what they have learned and make it their own. Or decide that there might be another version of Truth. Two of the most profound reactions to the theology and social order of the Brahmins emerged almost simultaneously, and both would have lasting influence. The first—Buddhism—developed during the sixth century BCE out of the teachings and beliefs of a religious and social reformer, Siddhartha Gautama, who became known as the Buddha (“the enlightened one”). The second—Jainism—was developed sometime after 580 BCE by Mahavira, whose name means “the great hero.”

Known to millions from those rotund little statues that show him sitting with his legs crossed, in the lotus position, his eyelids serenely closed, the palms of his hands turned up, Buddha is a universally recognizable character. He was born Siddhartha Gautama around 563 BCE on the Nepal-India border, about 145 miles (233 kilometers) southwest of Katmandu, according to archaeological excavations completed in 1995. Beyond those meager details, however, there is little concrete information about his life. Buddhist legend suggests that the Buddha’s mother, Maya, dreamed of her son coming into her womb in the form of a white elephant. According to folklore, earthquakes attended the Buddha’s birth. And Buddha himself claimed that he was an incarnation of the ancient Hindu god Indra.

And then there is the well-known “biography” that starts with Buddha’s decadent youth in the palace of his warrior-caste father, King Suddhodhana. When Suddhodhana receives a prophecy that his son will not become a great ruler if he sees the pain of the world, the father tries to shelter his son, even prohibiting the use of the words “death” and “grief” in Siddhartha’s presence. Each time his son leaves the palace, Suddhodhana orders the servants to go before him, sweeping the streets and decorating them with flowers. Another legend says that Siddhartha is given three palaces and between 10,000 and 40,000 dancing girls to keep him occupied.

But reality catches up with Siddhartha. After he marries the princess Yasodhara and has a newborn son, the twentysomethingish Siddhartha has a series of visions—or actual encounters. In the first vision, he sees an old man. In the second, he sees a sick man, and in the third, a corpse. In the fourth vision, he meets a wandering holy man. The first three visions convince Siddhartha that life involves aging, sickness, and death—that “everything must decay.” The vision of the holy man convinces him that he should leave his family and seek spiritual enlightenment.

Following these insights, Siddhartha renounces his family and wealth, and becomes a wandering monk practicing extreme forms of self-denial and self-torture for the next six years. Living in filth and eating only a single grain of rice some days, he pulls hairs from his beard, one by one, to inflict pain. But Siddhartha eventually realizes that extreme self-denial and self-torture can never lead to enlightenment, and abandons the practices.

One day, Siddhartha wanders into a village and sits under a shady fig tree, known as the bo, or bodhi, tree (“tree of wisdom”), determined to meditate until he gains enlightenment and completes his quest for the secret of release from suffering. As he sits in meditation, Siddhartha is tempted by the evil demon Mara, much as the biblical gospels tell of the temptations of Jesus in the wilderness. First, the demon sends his beautiful daughters to seduce Siddhartha. But Siddhartha resists. Then the demon threatens the young man with devils. But Siddhartha stands firm. In a final act, the devil throws a fiery discus at Siddhartha’s head, but it is transformed into a canopy of flowers.

After sitting for five weeks and enduring a world-shattering storm, Siddhartha finally achieves enlightenment. The roots of suffering are desires, he discovers, and one only has to reach a state without desire to overcome suffering. Released from all suffering and from the cycle of reincarnation, Siddhartha becomes Buddha and decides to show other people the way, preaching a doctrine of compassion and moderation.