Shakti: The Feminine Divine (25 page)

Vritra smiled for all the world like they were two old friends who enjoyed conversing. ‘Initially, I was a terrible disappointment to him and he gave up on me. But I never did, not even when his misery sank to such depths that it prompted him to lash out at all who drew near to him. Since only I would dare to do so, the brunt of it was borne by me. My father was a hero with a beautiful soul, and it was a blessing to be given an opportunity to nurse it back to full health. It was wonderfully
fulfilling to see him climb out inch by inch from the abyss into which he had sunk.’

‘How utterly delightful! I never knew that an endless diet of debauchery could have such curative properties. Kama would have loved this one!’

‘Sorry to disappoint you, but the truth is I merely talked him out of his afflictions. As I do with my students, I threw open amazing vistas, which helped him draw closer to the Goddess. Soon, he grew to love her as much as I did.

‘She is a possessive one, that Mahadevi, and demands single-minded devotion from her worshippers. Father knew that she would get sulky if he were to obsess over anyone but her, so he began devoting everything he had to her. The Goddess became the great love of his life and helped him find the joy for living that had been lost to him for so long. By throwing away his life for the son he had bred on his hatred, the old man managed to beat me in our race to be united with her first. In all honesty, I cannot grudge him his victory, can I?’

The question, addressed to Indra, broke the trance into which he had fallen sometime over the course of that hypnotic speech. He gave himself a mental shake and clutched the vajra, allowing the sharp edges he knew with the intimate knowledge of an ardent lover to reassure him. Vritra was clearly a madman. Indra had seen all kinds of responses to death, but this had to be a first and he was not sure how exactly he was supposed to respond.

‘You have to die!’ he had meant to thunder at his antagonist but to his horror, he sounded lame and hollow. If Vritra thought so too, he did not let on, shrugging resignedly in the manner of one who did not really care whichever way it went.

That stopped Indra in his tracks. How could Vritra
not give a damn that he was going to die because justice had finally caught up with him? With calculated cruelty and clever manipulation techniques, which would come under the rubric of fraudulent practices, he had caused an upheaval of epic proportions within a shockingly short period. Yet, he sat serenely in front of his executioner, looking for all the world like the noblest of the noble, fully confident that he was worthy of all the accolades reserved solely for the saintliest among gods and men. It was downright infuriating.

‘How can you be so remorseless?’ Indra demanded. ‘Using your unholy powers of persuasion and pseudo-religious ideology, you have defrauded both the innocent and the merely stupid who were looking for an escape from the unhappiness, discontent and disillusionment, which are the realities of a finite life. With the help of your unscrupulous recruiters, you have isolated cult members from their anguished families to brainwash them into become your personal zombies, who will not hesitate to stoop to every manner of degrading behaviour demanded of them.

‘Scions of the noblest families have deteriorated physically and mentally from all the orgies, blood-imbibing and the rest of the polluting practices you have encouraged them to take up, deeming it pleasing to your Goddess, whom you have hijacked from the Vedic pantheon and made over as the queen of the damned. There has never been such an architect of doom as you! Do you have no regrets for your actions?’

‘None at all!’ Vritra replied, and Indra knew he meant it.

That was all he said, but it had the impact of a slap across the face. He had listened to the heinous crimes Indra had attributed to him as if they were discussing someone he had never met in his life. Worse, the villain looked completely at
peace with himself.

Indra realized with shock that Twastha’s hatred and envy had been so much easier to bear than his son’s overbearing serenity. It was like seeing Trishiras all over again, as the familiar envy he detested so roiled within him. Both the brothers had the one thing Indra had never had—contentment with their lot in life. For all his wealth, power and his perfect little family, Indra was always restless and depression was always at arm’s length for him. It was absolutely infuriating that the likes of Trishiras and Vritra should have something that had eluded him.

Indra did not hurl the vajra, which had formerly claimed the life of Trishiras; instead, he used it like an axe to hack his hated adversary into a billion pieces. He would never remember the exact moment he began his murderous attack. But the sounds of rending flesh and crunching bones, and the thud of body parts as they littered the floor, would be fresh in his memory for all time. Vritra’s features became unrecognizable. The place looked like a slaughterhouse when Indra left, clutching his vajra.

As he melted away into the surrounding darkness to inform Svayambuha, Brihaspati, the lokapalas and the rest of the brotherhood that the deed was done, Indra wondered if he had not been hasty. His enemy had been smug to the very end. Clearly, he possessed knowledge that Indra did not have. Torture would have given him time to think over his sins. He should not have killed Vritra so quickly.

Indra took in his surroundings, which looked more than a little unfamiliar. That was strange, because he knew every inch of his beloved Amaravathi. It felt as if he had been walking for a long time and yet he had not arrived at his destination for
the rendezvous. It was most vexing. The dread that groped his intimate places now spread over his entire being.

While Indra searched in vain for his companions, the madness that had consumed the celestials and fuelled the killing frenzy took on pandemic proportions, spilling over into the world of the mortals. A single night’s work for the celestials would amount to hundreds of years on Mother Earth, which would see the persecution of all who were believed to be worshippers in the Goddess cult.

At the very beginning of those dark ages, a huge number of women from all over the world were rounded up like cattle being taken to the slaughter. In the eyes of the high priests of power, they were guilty of having been contaminated by the cult of the Goddess. Nobody was sure about the inner workings of these hubs of evil, but it was rumoured that young girls had been stolen away from their families and conferred the ‘honour’ of fulfilling the sexual fantasies of cult members. They supposedly sacrificed virgins and virile young men, drank their blood and engaged in cannibalistic as well as necromantic rites.

Healers, magicians, spiritual leaders, high priestesses, skilled artisans, performers and the cream of the society were rounded up. Some had even been worshipped as the living embodiments of the Goddess, capable of performing miracles, providing impossible cures and even restoring life to the dead. Accused of crimes such as witchcraft, sorcery, prostitution, kidnapping, molestation and engaging in lewd, depraved behaviour, they were paraded naked in the streets and branded with hot irons as a mark of their shame. Then they were tortured and flagellated before being burnt to death, drowned, hanged or decapitated. The few men who rose in their defence were captured, scourged and made to watch the long-drawn-
out process of punishment being meted out to their women, before they were also executed.

All traces of the infamous cult, which had caused such an upheaval, were brutally stamped out. Idols, papyrus scrolls and the rest of the implements of the Goddess’s worship were confiscated and speedily destroyed. The scholars of the day rewrote the tales of the Goddess so that her auspicious and maternal attributes would be preserved, to serve as a suitable guide for impressionable young girls. They developed meticulous rites and rituals for her worship that would be performed by male priests, in keeping with the laws of civilization. All this was done with the view to encourage women to embrace their inner goddess without making whores of themselves in a misguided quest for power and independence.

Too many women died in the catastrophic crackdown. The sex ratio dipped to dangerous levels. The extinction of the species loomed in the distance. That was when the iron laws—the Manusmriti—was framed by Svayambuha. They would serve to keep the necessary nuisances that were women in line, so that they would limit themselves to catering to the needs of the men in their life and devote themselves exclusively to breeding. As per the laws of the ruling Manu, only those women who adhered strictly to the Vedic code would be deserving of protection. If they behaved themselves, men would give up their lives to protect their honour. But all rebels would be hunted down and killed.

There was more. It was imperative that women remained dependent on men from birth, through the trials and tribulations of marriage and old age. Woe betide them if the requirements of these three male figures were not met.

Since there was proof that women were vulnerable to the lure of evil and were dominated by passions south of the border, they had to be guarded at all times. The use of force to get them to conform was not recommended, but was not forbidden either. A defiant woman, who could not or would not have children, and any female who dared to be unfaithful, deserved to be driven away from the home after her property was confiscated, so that she may be deprived of the protection of her family. Subsequently, she would be reborn in the womb of a jackal, to be mounted by a multitude of males, who would all pour their seed into her, tainting the pups, incurring more sin and condemning her to be born as a lower life form in future generations as well.

Men who sowed their seed wherever they felt like it would be subject to censure. Mutual fidelity needed to be strictly enforced so that the foundation of the family, which was the brick upon which society was built, wasn’t compromised. The Manusmriti covered every facet of life, delineating detailed proceedings for performing religious ceremonies, marriage, achieving sexual bliss, honouring deceased ancestors, correct eating habits and maintaining personal hygiene.

It included diktats to be followed by those handling the reins of kingship, the duty of men and women, proper management of finances, roles in society based on caste, rules governing morality and ethical conduct, penances for sins as well as for achieving moksha and union with the divine. For the longest time, the laws codified by Swayambuha would become pillars of society. No one would be able to escape their clutches, as was intended by the one who framed them.

Indra saw these events way into the future and could not have been more pleased. Manu, as well as he, had accomplished
their tasks to perfection and done Dadichi proud. He was not sure he approved of all the bloodletting, though, which the idiot mortals derived such perverse pleasure from, but it was a necessary evil to make their vision a reality. Nor could he get over his distaste regarding the extreme measures employed to reassert the dominance of males.

Varuna, Kubera and Yama, with their fellow celestials, had also killed a fair share of celestial women, but they had been clean kills and nobody had been subjected to the indignity of torture. Luckily, the mortals had got a hold of themselves eventually and the new laws, accompanied by an adoption of Goddess worship formulated by the celestials themselves following the slaying of Vritra, had his favour. It was a relief that after the long years of brutality, order once again prevailed on earth. Perhaps the end did justify the means and surely, none would hold him responsible for the moral lapses and excesses of the deplorable humans?

All in all, a lot had been accomplished and Dadichi would have approved. Indra was feeling far from triumphant, though, and the clammy fear had persistently plagued him as he searched for his elusive compatriots. It had taken a backseat while he had been preoccupied with the happenings on earth but now returned with a savage intensity. Old demons like the familiar doubt, unhappiness and unappeased anger pounded away at him inside his head, making him want to run away and never, ever come back.

Stray tendrils of hair brushed past his face, burning his skin, and Indra cried out loud as a host of alarming creatures descended on him en masse. The mighty king of the heavens, who had once stood firm against the charge of the buffalo demon, took to his heels when he saw the terrifying creatures
bearing down on him in savage fury. They were women of assorted sizes, shapes and hues.

The apparitions were big and small, fat and thin, muscular and emaciated, coal-black, chalky-white and blood-red. Their faces were contorted in a perpetual snarl, giving them their fiendish appearance. Their snake-like hair was employed as a weapon to lash his body repeatedly. All were naked and winged, proud breasts bouncing jauntily and protruding vulvas bared lewdly as they came at him from all directions.

Moving with the speed of light, they caught Indra in no time, dragging him down to the ground, clawing at him with sharpened talons and rending his flesh, ignoring his piteous pleas for mercy, wrung out between racking sobs. They assaulted him repeatedly as their high-pitched laughter hammered away at his eardrums. Drained of his strength and fearing that his life was slowly ebbing away, he pleaded with them to tell him who they were.

Continuing to laugh, shriek and inflict fresh wounds on his person, they informed him shrilly that they were the dakinis and sakinis, attendants of the Goddess, whose preferred food was the flesh of evil men like him and favourite drink, their unworthy blood. Roughly, they lifted him between themselves and soon they were airborne.

Indra was so relieved, he almost collapsed. ‘The Goddess must have ordered them to bring me to her,’ he mulled, drifting between consciousness and unconsciousness. Once he explained the truth about Vritra and his awful cult, she would forgive him for whatever crime he had been wrongly accused of and the terrible misunderstanding would be cleared up. After all, Shakti was the very epitome of compassion. Reading his thoughts, the dakinis and sakinis howled with laughter.