It was more than forty two centuries ago. I was in the Indus valley that is now considered to be a part of Pakistan. Human beings were very few. A handful of tribes distributed sparsely in the region. It was peaceful.
And then the weather patterns started changing. Not much
rain in the monsoon. And the winters were bitter cold. In a few years, the
forests around became so dry. And they would burst into fire without any
warning.
That is when the tribes got together. We channelised the
water from the river, made dwellings with bricks that would not easily go up in
flames and we even organised fire hydrants so that the surrounding forests
don’t create havoc in our settlements.
The worst fires tended to occur on the shortest day of the
year and coincided with a new moon. So we made a rule: nobody sleeps on that
day.
The cold dry years went by, one after the other. And then
the wars started.
The Asurs, a tribe from the north-west attacked our tribe,
the Deos. It took long for both to realise the futility. Diplomatic talks led
to an agreement: we dig wells together so that water is not a matter of
contention.
Thus the first wells of humanity were dug. A matter of pride
for both tribes.
But the rains did not come. The wells were getting dry. And
then the migration started. Those who stayed had to face starvation. Soon there
was nobody there.
***
It was about twenty seven centuries ago. I was in the
Gangetic plains. A few centuries of good rainfall and not-so-cold winters had
an impact on food production. There were more people around. And enough food to
feed them. After the stomachs were full, the main entertainment was storytelling,
as it was in our earlier days, forty two centuries ago.
And history always yields to storytelling.
So the fires of old were due to the wrath of a god, Siva.
And to placate him, you have to worship the structure of a fire hydrant. People
had forgotten what it was used for and called it shivling. To propitiate the god with the burning gaze, you have to
put ashes on your forehead and body.
The time of the shortest day and the new moon did not
coincide any more. But people took the moon as the indicator of shivrathri and kept awake.
The days of the great fires were centuries ago. Cultural memories
evolve, mutate, change.
So did the history of the animosities between the Deos and the
Asurs. The Deos became gods and the Asurs were demons. They collaborated not
for digging wells for water, but for extracting the elixir of immortality.
Legends of local heroes were added to the story of the Deos
and the Asurs. Shiva became less important than Rama, a righteous king, and
Krishna, an indulgent cowherd, projected as incarnations of one of the Deos.
Stories grow in the telling. From history to legends, the
complexity evolves into mythology. The new gods were added to the Vedic
pantheon. I did not know about these gods, forty two centuries ago.
Population growth among the gods kept pace with growth in human
populations.
***
About 50 years ago, I was in the South of what is now
considered India. The Malabar Kingdom had acceded to the demands of the grand
coalition, very similar to what happened to Europe a few decades later.
My family had Shiva as deity. But we were in a Vaishnavite
temple town. The wars between the Vaishnavites and Shivites had long been
forgotten. And the Harijans, who became the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled
Tribes and later became Dalits, had just gained entry to the temple. Like the
many kingdoms coalesced into one country, the many and diverse gods coalesced
into the Hindu pantheon. Three hundred and thirty million of them cowered
together in a peaceful corner, to escape the assaults of the single god of
Islam and the trinity of Christianity. My mother was willing to pray to any
deity, even the Chinese Datos that she encountered in Malaysia decades later.
After Khalistan, before Brexit.
Long history, when encapsulated in the form of small stories
to engage the young, mutate and adapt to the cultural environment and evolve
into hundreds of versions. A few verses, of one version each of Ramayana and
Mahabharata, were read aloud at night, after the prayers to Shiva during
twilight.
I can see the Indian population becoming schizoid, breaking
into compartmentalised moralities. One part of their being emulated Krishna,
willing to steal, lie, having more wives than Islam allows, plotting and even killing
one’s relatives in the name of dharma. Another, like Rama is willing to ambush
their enemies to reach their political ambitions. Yet another part emulates
Shiva, not engaged in the social, economic life of ordinary beings. Identification
with Durga, Draupathi and Sita also has psycho-social consequences. While some Hindus
feel strange in a Lakshmi Narayan temple, another set would feel squeamish about
entering a Mariamman kovil.
Me, I am a time traveller. I distinguish history from
stories, legends from mythologies. I have seen too many gods die, some very
young. And, too many being born. If there were a census of gods in India, we
would find that the number has depleted substantially from the original thirty
three million. Even though new ones are being added to the Hindu pantheon,
which people mistake for the Vedic pantheon, it appears that divine diversity
is now as threatened as biodiversity.
And, of course, like the biodiversity that has disappeared
and yet remain in the form of DNA preserved in ancient bones, gods too, don’t
die completely. Look at the European gods that died due to the epidemic of Christianity.
Thor and Zeus lie dormant in the society. Waiting for the human sighs to bring
them back to life.
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