[Mythoscopy] P14.01 – Vāmana Purāna – Chapter 1

Today, let us dive into Vāmana Purāna. This is one of the MahāPuranas, but I have noticed it has been referred to less often. This may have many reasons. One of them being that it talks of an exploit of Viṣṇu, which is not found very interesting by those who equate/prefer action over stylized storytelling. This makes it a prime candidiate for me, as a mythoscopist. I can look at something overlooked often. And if my way of looking is not to the liking of the more traditional, even then it is fine. As to refute my way, they would have to synthesize their own way. And that would mean, more people looking at these stories. And THAT, my dear friends, is my true motive. Create more mythoscopists – whatever (left, right, centre, off-centre) wing of thought they claim subscription to.

Vāmana Purāna is normally ranked 14th out of the 18 MahāPurānas. We shall try and cover the first chapter (adhyāya) today. Hence, displaying an extreme (and most probably misplaced) case of ambition, let us tag this post as P14.01. This (by the way) is a short chapter, with just 30 ślokas.

In the bardic traditions, this would have been the content of an introductory session to a connected series of story-telling (and listening).

The narrator would (in ancient times) have been a sūta; reciting for a circle of people including indulging kings (the main audience and sponsor/s), editorialising ṛṣis (the secondary audience and mentor/s), and engaging common folk (the tertiary audience). In some (later) cases it would have been a paurānika (i.e. Knower of Old Stories), who was most probably a well educated person (one who has grown, or a brāhmin), reciting stories of yore (purānas) for a king as part of his afternoon session of “educational” recreation.

Sūtas were reportedly a group (an upavarna may I say “sub-caste”) of people who fulfilled the role of bards, as well as charioteers and/or elephant keepers.

As per some sources they were of mixed lineage, from a pratiloma union of a brāhmin woman and a kṣatriya man (or descendants of such progenies). This was against what was considered an acceptable direction of inter-varna union, hence the evocative term of against, i.e. prati, the direction of growth of hair, i.e. loma. They would have met with permissive behavior from the ruling kṣatriyas (maybe whose numbers included their paternal relatives) and the rule-making brahmins (who may have amongst them their maternal relations).

A few names of well-known sũtas are:

• Lomaharṣana (Whose Narration Gives Goosebumps),
• Ugraśrava (Who Has a Loud Voice), and
• Adhiratha (Who Has a Grand Chariot).

I am knowingly omitting the name of the most well known sūta of them all (the foster son of Adhiratha), whom we shall surely talk of some other day.

When we, hopefully, know each other better.

The chapter covers the basics of an introductory session. It covers five important aspects of the content of this Purāna, and then dives into a beautiful story.

Firstly, it tells us the framing context. In this case, it was a series of conversations between a legendary narrator, Pulastya; i.e. The Perceptive One; and a legendary listener/questioner, Nārada; i.e. The One Who Gives Knowledge/ Sound.

Somehow their names and their assigned roles are reversed. The Perceptive One speaks and explains, while The One Who Gives Knowledge listens and understands.

These two individuals were quite respectable, being sons of Brahmā; i.e. The One Who Grows (and Makes Everything Grow). Pulastya was one of the legendary Seven Poetic Ones, or Saptaṛṣis, while Nārada was the only Poet (ṛṣi) who was (also) considered one of the bright ones (deva, a term which may be , but should not be, translated as “deity”), or Devaṛṣi.

Let us appreciate the use of rhyming alliteration. This would have made memorising (and recitation) easier for the (most probably) illiterate narrators. Hence for this śloka, I have tried to reproduce the Sanskrit text. The same is followed by a (slightly unwieldy) literal translation. I have added the intent with an i.e. after the same. In addition I have supplied paranthesised transliteration of the Sanskrit words for those who have difficulty in reading the devanāgari script.

This will take a lot of time and effort, so this shall be done sparingly as we go deeper.

Secondly, this chapter also tells us about the topic of the primary thread of their conversation, i.e. the avatāra story of The Dwarfish One or Vāmana. He is also referred to as The One Who Has Three Strides or Trivikrama.

The actual name of the Purāna does give this away as the main content. Since there are purānas whose names and the main content do not agree, this clarity is important, in my honest opinion.

Thirdly, this chapter also tells about the topic of a minor related thread of the conversation. It hints that we shall get to know from the upcoming conversations, about the reason why Prahlāda; i.e. The One Who is Before (and hence the cause of) Happiness; fought with the Thirty deities (i.e. the Bright Ones, or Devas, who are numbered sometimes three, sometimes thirty, sometimes thirty-three or sometimes thirty-three crores).

This is surprising as Prahlāda was well-known as a great devotee to Viṣṇu; i.e. The All Pervading One. He was the Good Daitya (daityasattam) whose well-being was the reason that Viṣṇu took another (fourth?) avatāra, the Man-Lion (Narasimha). In fact this was the only time that one person’s well-being was the cause of a coming down (avatāra) of Viṣṇu. Mostly his avatāras are for the well being of the whole world, or at least the large proportion, who are considered worth the effort.

This minor thread is related to the primary thread. As Bali, the antagonist of the Vāmana (fifth?) avatār story, was the grand-son of Prahlāda.

By the way Bali is mostly referred to as MahāBali to avoid confusion with another similiarly named good antagonist to another (seventh?) avatāra of Viṣṇu, The Pleasing One born in the clan of Raghu (Rāghava Rāma).

Another related by the way (the last I hope in this instalment). While nowadays when people refer to Rāma the avatāra of Viṣṇu, it means Rāghava Rāma. But it is always good form to specify it is Rāghava Rāma (based on his clan), or Sitāpati Rāma or simply Sitā Rama (referring to his spouse), or Rājā Rāma (based on his status). Because there were two more individuals, of whom one is always considered as a Viṣṇu avatāra and the other is sometimes considered as an avatāra and sometimes as the elder half-brother of an avatāra (may be the most popular of the famed dashāvatāras), or sometimes both. The One who is always counted amongst the list of avātaras (sixth?) should be referred to a Bhārgava Rāma (based on his clan), or Jamadagneya Rāma (referring to his father), or more popularly as Parashu Rāma (referring to his weapon of choice). That leaves us with the individual who is considered as an avatāra or someone close to and respected by one. He may have been the (eighth?) avatāra who should be referred to as Bala Rāma (referring to his immense physical prowess), or Haladhara Rāma (referring to his favourite instrument of work and war), or Rauheṇya Rāma (referring to his mother).

As the fifth aspect, this chapter also tells about the topic of the secondary thread of the conversation. We are informed that the Purāna would also delve into the story of how Sati; i.e. The Truthful One; who was the graceful daughter of Dakśa; i.e. the Skillful One; became the beloved spouse of Śankara; The One Who Does Good (for all); as well as how after she discarded her body, she was reborn in the abode of The Mountain King Himavata; The Snowy One. The Purāna is also reported (by the interest-garnering human narrator) to cover how she resumed her relationship with Śankara. This secondary thread is quite unrelated to the primary thread.

This should (but does not) seem strange as the two narratives; viz. Vāmana avatāra and Shiva-Sati-Pārvati Story of union, and then bereavement and then union in another form; are not just disconnected but actually the first is part of the Vaiṣnava tradition and the second is part of the (sometimes at odds with the first) Śaiva and Śakta traditions.

I have a theory. This is a later edition/ addition. This Purāna was originally a fully Vaiṣnava narrative (and it is actually called out as such in a few older purānas), but in a bid to make it work with more audiences, the narrators added on the Śaiva and Śakta stories, due to which now this is considered a Śaiva Purāna. This difference in categorization of Vāmana Purāna has baffled a few scholars. But, after my many attempts to tell a story, and ending up telling a different story as well, I can understand the predicament of my ancient (or medieval) predecessors, and appreciate the beauty of this.

How did they do that? Simple. The Purānas were Śrauta; i.e transmitted orally, and were put down into writing much later, mostly in the Mauryan (3rd to 2nd Century BCE) and Gupta (4th to 6th Century CE) eras. We are talking of the 18 main or MahāPurānas. There are some lesser or UpaPurānas which were frozen much later, and some are still being edited.

How do we know? Simpler still. One thing that the purānas do, in addition to telling stories of creation (sarga), world view (pratisarga), repeated cosmic cycles of destruction and creation (manvantara) and genealogy of deities (vamṣa), is also talk of the genealogy and pedigree of the kings (vamṣanućarita). There are names of kings of dynasties that came much later, like the Nanda dynasty (Matsya Purāna), the Maurya dynasty (Viṣṇu Purāna) and Gupta dynasty (again Viṣṇu Purāna). So, either there were multiple stages of continuous editing, redaction, addition and reduction in the purānas which were works known to us from ancient times. Or, these all were composed later. And a few (which are the most revered) were composed in the 4th to 6th Century CE. I prefer option 1, for a simple reason. It makes more logical sense. Also, it is less disrespectful to these awesome works of artful storytelling.

And as the Purānas were meant not only to entertain with stories, but educate with useful knowledge, the chapter finally gives us a list of the non-narrative knowledge we can expect. It is explained (through a request from Nārada to Pulastya) that the further sessions would also cover the importance of:

• the Tirthas; i.e The Bridges to Divinity or places of pilgrimages; as well as
• the importance of charity, and to top it all up also cover
• various vratas; i.e. observances; and
• the proper methods of these observances.

This part of the Purānas are mostly in prose form, or in separate (and may be much edited and later added) sections called mahātmya, i.e. glories, as they talk of glories of methods and places. Consider them as advertisements for self-help methods and guides to places of religious tourism. Whenever I encounter these sections, I skim them briefly and flag them for later coverage. Sometimes I do get back to them, when something else is brought to my notice, that needs these as reference. May be as I grow older, I shall return to these more often. I am in my (almost) early forties, so I hope I have time enough.

This brings me to one of my incipient theories of how the Indic culture has at various stages handled the part of social methodology which is called “religion” in most other cultures.

In the start there was the (natural) awe of various “unknowable” forces and aspects of nature and life. This included the sun (with its various levels of heat), the moon (with its varied phases), the earth (with the benefits it gave and sometimes refused to give), large mountains, rivers – big and small, and such like. “They” were given gifts of appeasements, and songs were composed and sung in praise. In parallel, there was the respectful veneration of our betters and elders – both alive and dead. This was in the form of ancestor worship, teacher worship, king worship and warrior worship. Again gifts of appeasement and songs of praise were used.

The two groups (the “unknowable” forces of nature and the “once known” forceful people) were combined into various entities or concepts – such as Indra (rain-god and a king), Rudras (gods of thunderstorms and warriors), Saraswati (goddess of learning and a mighty river), and so on.

The songs of praise were later on compiled into beautiful hymns. These praises (ṛk or ṛg) were so well composed, that it was considered important to remember them well, and read them exactly by the feet of verse, i.e. rhyming stanzas (padapātha). These were now named, and known as the Spoken Knowledge or veda. Later on portions and recensions of these were handed over to different families, both connected by blood (pitā-putra) and connected by teaching (guru-śiṣya). These people were mostly male, and limited to a few more intelligent (or more acceptable) ones. These creations of creative prosody became the Vedas, and we can consider this phase as the early Vedic phase, ending at around 10th Century BCE.

As is the wont, when intelligent people talk and think of the same things again and again, they create elaborate philosophies around them. These thoughts and discussions gave us such beautiful things like monism (advaita), specific monism (viśiṣṭha advaita) and dualism between human and divine (dvaita). As most of these intelligent people (the teachers and the disciples) had similar backgrounds and experiences, quite a few of them came across and spoke of similar theories and philosophies – or at least they became similar once discussed. Hence these concepts were considered to be “discovered” and not “invented”. In fact, they were considered to be “memories”, hence termed as smriti. Again, the participants were mostly male, with a few females also included. These people kept aloof from the general populace, as whenever they tried to include the others they seemed to ask difficult questions, and hence were considered as not yet ready for this inner knowledge (gñana). These became what is part of the Vedas (vedānga), as well the purpose or the end towards which the study of Vedas takes you (vedānata). These were learnt under the feet of the teacher, hence were called Upanishadas. We can consider this phase as the later Vedic phase, ending at around 6th Century BCE.

At the end of later Vedic Phase, there were many movements of reform which tried to make the concepts more accessible to all. These were monastic orders like Jainism and Buddhism. Quick note, Jainism as per my understanding is something that is much older, just it became more popular with the common populace in a particular period, to the level it was noticed and actions taken by the mainstream. These were rooted in knowledge and concepts that were part of the vedānta and vedānga – with some innovative changes. Just that they were in the more accessible languages of the people, the naturals (i.e. prākrits), rather than in the language of the cultured (i.e. sanskrit). These movements were sometimes (or by some) considered as heresies (by the more conservatives in the mainstream), sometimes considered as offshoots (by the more permissive in the mainstream), and sometimes considered independent ways of life or dharma/dhamma (by the more conservatives in the “sidestreams”). These became the strongest during the Mauryan period, unsurprisingly about the time the Indian subcontinent started “writing” in earnest. We can term it as the pre-classical phase, or better the Monastic Order Phase. This, as per my world view, went on till the time when many tribes invaded the subcontinent, and brought with them one of the Abrahamanic religions, i.e. till 12th Century CE. Sadly, even these did not fully include the female side of the population that well. The monastic orders were started by, and administered by men, who had taken vows of celibacy. And as is the wont, avowed celibates try to avoid that side of life that they have given up, but still feel attracted to.

After the later Vedic Phase, or may be parallel to the very end of it, were composed certain stories in verse form in Sanskrit. These were originally composed by a few of the “intelligent” ones who knew the vedas and vedānta. These individuals may have wished that the less aware could partake or at least be aware of the deeper things the poets (ṛṣis) had found. The concepts were encoded into stories of olden times. These old stories (purānas) had great world building, with concepts like creation (sarga) and descriptions of the created world (pratisarga). They also had encoded descriptions of the different facets of nature shown as deities as well as about early kings and philosopher poets (vamṣa). As is quite understandable, the stories sometimes were misremembered. Or sometimes to explain a concept the same characters were used in a similar but not exactly same story. These discrepancies would have been pointed out. Explaining that these are mere stories may have been detrimental to the good work being done. Or maybe the narrators (and composers) were too proud to admit any frailty of intellect or memory. So a concept of cosmic cycles of repetitive events, which were sometimes very similar, and sometimes not so much. These were called the intervals (or differences) in the times of the the thinking man (manvantaras). These were taught to disciples so they could go around spreading them. These narrators (and secondary composers) were sometimes sons who parroted the verse written by their fathers (Suka) or travelling bards of less acceptable provenance, called sūtas. Later on when the current kings asked themselves (or atleast their recent ancestors) added to this, the sūtas also included royal genealogies (vamṣanućarita) into the purānas. These five things – sarga, pratisarga, vamṣa, vamṣanućarita and manvantara – are the five features (panćalakśaṇa) of the Purānas. This phase was the Paurānika Phase, Post Vedic Phase or Classical Age, which (I believe) went on till the 6-10th Century CE. The storytelling and content included the general populace a little more. Yet the female population was not catered to enough, as the composers, narrators, sponsors, editors and the majority of the audience were male. Their own biases and fallacies were included in the stories, and the females were excluded from the stories – other than reasons for downfall or just rewards for great achievements.

That brings us to the penultimate phase, which corrected the one problem of the earlier phase I have kept hinting upon – the exclusion of women. At around the time of advent of Islam in the Indian subcontinent, two things happened. The first was that the society became a little less inclusive for the fairer sex in the social sphere, with purdāh system, and stronger endogamy rules (with a twist of exogamy, viz gotras). The second was, that the society became a little more inclusive for the smarter (fairer as well) sex in the “religious” sphere. The epics and parts of the purānas were translated in local languages. The parts of the purānas that were translated (with heavy redaction as well as editing) were the mahātmyas. These are also called the vrat-kathās. You may have come across a few of them. They have a few serious sounding Sanskrit verses at the start, middle and end. Some (strangely happy looking) priests take pride to try and do the whole thing in (as per them) original Sanskrit. Yet, the popularity of these stories is because (a) they are in the local languages, (b) include a good number of females as protagonists (main or secondary), and (c) they underline that the actions of these women would cause the good (or bad) fortunes of the whole family. In most of Indian households, this phase is still going on. Let us call it the modern phase, or the mahātmya phase, or the vratkathā phase.

This brings us to the last phase. I will just name it, and leave it at that. We may call it the Hindutva Phase of the New-Forevers (Nūtan-Sanātani).

As there has been a lot of exposition (refer above, while I weep at a resolution broken so easily), let us try to limit that.

The first chapter of Vāmana Purāna ends with a lovable (atleast for me) story, featuring Śiva and Sati. It is recounted without any introduction or direct connection with the rest of the chapter.

Let us end today’s dive into the stories by going through it, with minimal exposition.

After this, Sati, as per Putastya (and as narrated by the Sūta/Paurānika) took an even more loving tone.

Then there is an interesting metaphor used.

This can be seen as a comment on female nature (and that too not in a nice way). Or it gives us a small window of understanding why Indra, the god associated with monsoon rains, is so often associated to illicit behavior with beautiful and hitherto blameless women. Those stories we can understand are just allegorical reference to how normally serene rivers which are known for being amiable and serene towards those who stay at their banks, become quite different and hence “cursed” (or at least complained about) for acting in a depraved manner when approached by or in the company of Indra, and his torrential rain bearing monsoon clouds.

This innocuous story seems to be without any explanatory reasons, nor does it take any narrative forward. But, to the ears of the devotees of Śiva this story would have underlined the difference between their beloved Śankara and the other deities.

The main narrative is how the Devas and the Daityas fought over the lordship of the three worlds, and Viṣṇu took part in this directly or indirectly on behalf of the Devas. In contrst, Śiva refused to even own a house to take shelter from inclement weather, in spite of many entreaties of his beloved wife.