Becoming God

by Trilok Nath Pandey

  Cheu continued travelling along the Karnali for almost six days. He was enamoured with swift current, clean water, and panoramic beauty of the shores clad with lush green forests. The days were mostly sunny, barring brief occasions when stray cumulus of clouds obfuscated the azure sky. The nights were cool and starry. During day he travelled; during night he would seek shelter beneath some tree.

  On the seventh day, Cheu reached a place where the Karnali met with a rivulet coming from the east. He was reluctant to follow the river ahead across the confluence as an uncanny urge prompted him to instead move up the rivulet. Going by his intuitive call, Cheu turned to the left and moved along the left shore of the rivulet.

  Cheu might have not travelled long, when he saw a makeshift wooden bridge over the rivulet. It made him understand that some human dwelling was close nearby. He also found some telltale signs which prompted him to turn left and enter a dense forest. Soon he traced a track which bore testimony to human footfalls, which led him to a vast plateau with farmlands, and a pond of clean water surrounded with thick growth of trees laden with fruits.

  It was almost afternoon. Cheu was tired due to excruciating heat. Having found the pond, he did not delay throwing his goatskin robe off to the ground, and jumped into the pond. The cool water was so soothing that he dabbled for long, until the thrill was interrupted by some whispers wafting from the bank of the pond, where some women – numbering five or six – were talking in hushed voices:

  First: See, who is bathing there in the pond?

  Second: It is not the time when a rishi (the seer) takes bath. He seems a stranger, some intruder.

  Third: How is it possible? How can an outsider enter our Surkshetra, the abode of rishis? You know this region is impenetrable for strangers. It is not for nothing that this place is called Nepal, protected by our Maharshi Ne.

  Fourth: He appears to be some god from heaven.

  First: See, he is naked, clearly visible in the water.

  Second: See, how strong his body and limbs are!

  Third: See, how charming and handsome he looks! So youthful!

  Fourth: He may be Kamdev, the god of desire, from heaven.

  The First laughed, teasing: “You always think of Kamdev. Go; have your kam, the desire, satiated to your fill.”

  All laughed boisterously. It attracted Cheu’s attention. Timidly he rushed out of water, and hastily put on his goatskin robe. Meanwhile, two rishikumars, the rishi youths, who were passing nearby, were attracted by peals of women’s laughter. Enraged at the sight of an outsider, they pounced on him, demanding to know his name and how he happened to be there. Cheu did speak something to them they could not understand. They took him to Maharshi Ne.

  2.7

  The region, called Surkshetra, was an idyllic place peopled by the rishis of Bhargava gotra, who claimed to have descended from the ancient fire-priest Bhrigu. The Bhargavas were credited with instituting the ritual of offering Somras, the juice of the Soma plant, to the Vedic deities. Some of them were warriors; some were priests, and many were the seers and composers of Rigvedic hymns. They sported a thread hanging from the left shoulder to the right waist. They considered this thread very pious and observed many rules for maintaining its sanctity.

  Bhargavas of Surkshetra were the people devoted to the clan faith and scholarship, and farming and cattle-rearing. Their terraced farmlands were scattered across the plateau, and their cattle consisted mainly of cows that they loved and venerated a lot. They spoke Sanskrit, the language of the refined, and pursued studies very vigorously. Most of them were sententious, and some were real prigs, considering themselves a chaste and holy race, and outsiders, though they had hardly come across them, as rustic and less virtuous. But, their patron, Maharshi Ne was a different person and he always disapproved of such pretentions. He had been to far-off places in plains and had interacted with various virtuous people.

  While the two rishikumars were taking Cheu to Maharshi Ne, they were followed by the women at the pond and joined en route by other rishis working in the nearby fields. They all were astonished to see Cheu as they had never seen an outsider in Surkshetra. To them, this person, despite all his divine countenance, was a bumpkin as he could not speak or understand Sanskrit.

  Maharshi Ne’s Ashram, a small shanty of straw, was located a bit away from a village of about twenty-five shanties. These were the shanties of family-raising rishis, and each such shanty was enclosed with a cattle’s yard and a fireplace in the forecourt. Each evening when a rishi or his son, rishikumar, returned from grazing his cows in the forest, performed, along with the whole family sitting around the fire, a ritual called yagya, the sacrifice, by putting purified butter in the fire and singing hymns from the Rig Veda.

  The children, both boys and girls, used to go daily to Maharshi Ne’s Ashram for schooling. The elders would assemble at the Ashram occasionally, particularly on the eleventh day of each fortnight, which was a holiday in the area. On this day, they observed fast and performed various rituals, listened to sermons from Maharshi Ne, and held religious discourses under his tutelage. Besides, they all, men and women, except children, gathered there for drinking Somras, once a month, on the full moon night. The Somras, prepared afresh by Maharshi Ne, was served personally by him to everybody in a shining moon-shaped silver chalice. For children it was administered by the Maharshi once a month during the school time in a mini chalice.

  Among the whole clan Maharshi Ne was the only person who knew, and was authorized to know, how to prepare Somras from the Som plant, which only he could identify in the forest. Somras was considered capable of healing the ills of body, and freeing the mind from the concerns of the body. The Maharshi, who was also the medicine man of the clan, believed that sickness was the consequence of sin.

  Another secret, only Maharshi Ne was privy to, was the Samhita, a treatise, written on birch barks by his grandfather, Maharshi Bhrigu on the science of astrology. The Samhita, which had been handed over secretly by Bhrigu from his deathbed to his son Shukr for safe custody with instruction that the book should not fall into wrong hands, had reached Ne in succession of inheritance.

  In the complete privacy of nights, Ne had been perusing the book, which he once found making a prophecy that an incarnation of God would descend on the bank of a lake in the pious mountains. It was quite intriguing and tormenting for Ne as he was swarmed by inquisitive thoughts as to whether he would ever be fortunate to see the incarnate and if he happened to be so how could he recognise him. He would keep returning to the Samhita seeking answers to his questions. The Samhita, being written in codes difficult to decipher, would appear cannily silent to Ne’s questions. When techniques taught by his father Shukr to decrypt the text were not of much avail, Ne followed his advice that the Samhita would reveal the real import of a context when the text would be read repeatedly with concentration and devotion. Eventually, after many nights devoted to persistent perusal, the Samhita had once twinkled with an indication that the incarnate would bear a mauve spot on his neck.

  The Maharshi, who was busy teaching children in front of his Ashram, was ruffled to see the whole village coming in a procession towards his Ashram. At the helm were two rishikumars bringing a gorgeous youth, who looked a bit perplexed. When they came closer, the Maharshi asked anxiously, “What’s the matter? Who is he?” The two rishikumars replied almost in unison, “This is an intruder, and was caught bathing in the pond”.

  Maharshi Ne went closer, in consternation, to the detainee, and glowered at him. His countenance changed completely, when he gazed for a while at Cheu’s bluish neck, and exclaimed exuberantly, “Lord! Lord Neelkanth!” He immediately prostrated before the youth, who nervously demurred, “No, I am not the Lord, nor am I Neelkanth. You are mistaken. I am Cheu.”

  The Maharshi seemed to be spiritually so surcharged at the moment that he was oblivious to what the youth said. He gestured the villagers as well as the students with a languid wave of hand to immediately leave the Ashram,
and took Cheu inside his shanty. There he petitioned Cheu, complaining, “Lord, I have been waiting for you for so long.” When Cheu again demurred at being called the lord, Ne smiled, intoning: “Lord, I know who you are. Our ancestral book has already prophesied about you. Later, Mother Goddess revealed to me in vision that you have arrived on the earth, and also that you will bless me by visiting this place.” The Maharshi waited for a short while, looking for Cheu’s response, and when found him silent and indifferent, continued to speak, “The Mother Goddess, who purported to have planned a role for herself by coming on the earth to participate in your divine Play, has assigned me some tasks concerning you. Grant me permission and capacity to accomplish that.”

  The same day, Maharshi took Cheu on a journey to the south. Having crossed over the rivulet through the wooden bridge, he took Cheu through dense forests, high mountains, glaciers, valleys, and along some rivers, crossing their tributaries. For six days they travelled, feeding on the fruits available in the forests and drinking water from springs and streams, besides a regular use of Somras, which the Maharshi was carrying secretly.

  On the seventh day, they reached almost the end of the mountainous terrain. After travelling further for about a half of a day, they arrived at an open even field along the River Ganga.

  Chapter three

  Shiv

  3.1

  Maharshi Panini had established a university called Vishwayatan at an idyllic place at the foot of the Himalayas along the River Ganga in the country of Uttarakuru. The place had acquired an acronym of Rishikesh after the rishis, seers, with long kesh, hair, dwelling in the area. A settlement of huts and cottages roofed with conical thatches was the campus of the university. Maharshi Panini was its Kulpati, the chancellor, as well as Kulguru, the head teacher.

  There were more than a hundred gurus, the teachers, to teach about five thousand students, who were all boarders. A student was admitted at the age of five and was required to stay in the university till the age of twenty-five, when he completed his studies properly. The studies were pursued in five disciplines – Gyan: humanities and social sciences, Vigyan: material sciences, Adhyatma: spiritual sciences, Kalaa: fine arts, and Shastra: arms training.

  3.2

  Maharshi Panini was extremely reticent about his personal life. But, the students would whisper piquantly as to how the Kulpati was declared a dunce by his teacher in his school days and then dispossessed by his displeased father. The destitute boy then had wandered here and there before eventually seeking refuge in a hermit at the place where Vishwayatan later came up. The hermit had carved a genius out of the featherbrained boy with a dint of stupendous studies and a dab of blessings. The once despised son of a disdainful father Pani and sorrowful mother Dakshi, of Pushkalavati in Gandhar region of Brahmadesh, emerged a trailblazer revolutionary in the field of education, capitalizing on the bitterness of his boyhood and brilliance of intellect acquired at the feet of the hermit. Panini, who was given this name after his father’s name Pani, imbibed the characteristic reticence from his far-gravely reticent hermit, the students would wisecrack.

  Panini, as a boy, had suffered miseries at the hands of his grumpy guru, who ran a gurukul, the family of the taught, saddling the pupils with the drab lessons to learn by rote. The boy, who preferred to close his mind in repulsion to inane extremities of his guru, was on the lookout for liberation – of self and the system of education. The release was serendipitous, blessed by the kind-hearted hermit.

  In his own liberation, Panini found the liberation of education system from the clutches of extremely individualistic and authoritarian gurus, by founding Vishwayatan, a university open to all. He brought learned persons and great teachers on one platform so as to provide a holistic education through interdisciplinary studies and research. He was always open to new thoughts, and was innovative in adopting new ways of imparting good education.

  3.3

  Maharshi Ne, along with Cheu, went straight to the Kulpati Niwas, the residence of Maharshi Panini, which was located on the top of a grassy mound in a secluded corner of the campus. Panini was surprised to see Ne’s sudden arrival, though he was the visiting Paramacharya, the professor, but his visits had always been well scheduled.

  Panini was overwhelmed with joy, when Ne revealed that the accompanying youth was Lord Neelkanth himself brought there for studies. Ne also divulged, in a hushed voice, what Mother Goddess had revealed in the vision, particularly her instruction that the Lord be imparted education in all disciplines at Panini’s new school, and also that Lord’s real identity be kept hidden to let him avail the benefits of an ordinary student.

  A new syllabus was prepared by a committee comprising the heads of five streams of studies, under supervision of Panini and Ne, keeping in view the age of Cheu being much higher than the normal age for admission. The whole course of twenty years was squeezed in a capsule of five years, one year each for five streams of studies. The real identity of the Lord was, however, protected from the heads also.

  The name of Cheu got inadvertently changed to Shiv in the records of the university, due to it being pronounced so in Sanskrit. It was later accepted by Cheu also as the word, meaning the benefactor, suited well to his benevolent persona. But when he was asked to wear the university uniform, he expressed reluctance. Though, he shed off his goatskin robe and instead agreed on wrapping a tiger-skin robe offered by Maharshi Panini.

  The visit of Maharshi Ne was decided to be utilized by the Vidwat Parishad, the academic council, of the university by organizing a discourse on the topic “Compassion: the Essence of Spirituality”. Maharshi Ne was widely acclaimed as a great seer, composer of many hymns of the Rigveda, and a thoroughly pious person. Listening to him was considered a great opportunity.

  The next day after the evening prayers, Maharshi Ne delivered the talk in the open house of the university. The audience, consisting of the students, teachers and the chancellor, were enthralled over the talk. The question-answer session just after the talk was well utilized by the teachers and senior students for getting their doubts clarified and gaining more enlightenment on the topic. The younger students, who were not able to appreciate the talk, were a tad irritation as they indulged in teasing the fellow students by nudging each other and whistling from behind their lips, sometimes laughing unnecessarily, and joining the chorus of appreciation mischievously loudly. Except for their disconcerted class teachers, the elders only smiled over their playful puerility.

  Shiv liked the serene and scholarly ambience of the university, and was happy to find new friends there. Some students mocked at his age and tiger-skin robe, though they all were deeply impressed by his amazingly cool countenance. He emerged as a friend of all, though he was close to only two - Narad and Dadhichi. Together, they were famously known on the campus as mitratrayi, the troika, and wielded immense influence among students and teachers.

  Narada, son of Brahma, was a lanky, flighty boy. He was a past master in sly tricks and wisecracks, though pure and pious at heart. This contrast in Narad’s character had endeared him to Shiv. Another very great trait of his character was that he was a genius in music and was blessed with a very sweet and melodious voice. He had invented Veena, a stringed musical instrument. He used to roam on the campus freely and fearlessly, humming some self-composed song and tinkling with his wiry fingers Veena tucked to a side of his torso.

  Dadhichi, whose real name was Dadhyan, was son of Maharshi Atharvan, who was a great seer and lead author of the Atharva Veda. Despite belonging to a great ancestry of seers who had composed many high hymns in praise of gods like Agni and Indra, Dadhichi was a keen student of human psychology. He would remain absorbed in himself, contemplating and analysing intricacies of human mind, and discussing them with Shiv.

  Shiv was surprised to see the usually thoughtful Dadhichi wandering one day in the woods, glowering at flowers and bees. Another day, Dadhichi approached Shiv with a small vial containing some viscous material and asked him to taste th
e content. Mused with a new fad of his philosopher friend, Shiv tasted a bit the viscous liquid and purred smilingly, “It’s honey. Is it not? What’s new in it?” Dadhichi squealed with unusual delight, “A lot, my dear friend! This sweet liquid has got a great secret hidden in its bosom.” When pressed by Shiv, he revealed the secret, talking philosophically:

  “Shiv, you must have seen bees hovering around flowers of various plants. The bees collect saps from various flowers – sweet, sour, bland, bitter, and so on – and skilfully create a unique product called honey that you have just tasted. If we utilise this skill of honey-bees analogically to find the nectar of life, it would be a great spiritual discovery for human beings. If the soul engages the mind in collecting experiences from various emotions of life and then makes out a solution, the whole of the miseries of life would come to an end.”

  Shiv, who would remain impressed by Dadhichi’s otherwise philosophical talent, was surprised this time as how keenly Dadhichi had observed a usual phenomenon of nature and excellently utilised the analogy in finding a solution to miseries caused by mental vagaries. Shiv prided in friendship with such a great philosopher, and advised him to keep his discovery secret only to be disclosed at an opportune time. Meanwhile, Dadhichi named it Madhu Vidya, the science of honey.

  By the end of his five-year course, Shiv was a learned person, with specialization in many fields. He excelled in higher studies by doing valuable research propounding some very revolutionary theories. His thesis on how to improve the lot of the downtrodden was extolled as a revolutionary contribution to Social Studies in the Gyan stream. In Vigyan stream, he researched on the therapeutic and spiritual benefits of the seeds of Rudraksh trees, which grew in abundance in the area, besides submitting a dissertation on the ‘compassionate ways of rearing domestic cattle’ in animal husbandry. In Adhyatma stream, his work on tracing the root cause of human suffering was highly hailed by philosophers and spiritualists alike. In the field of applied Adhyatma, he developed a new method of meditation by focusing consciousness between the eyebrows at the forehead, and named it Trinetra Dhyan. In the field of music in Kalaa stream, he invented a new instrument by uniting the bottom of two small drums and attaching two knotted strings, in the middle, as strikers. He named it Damru, and played it by waving a single hand. To showcase the easy maneuvering and immense spiritual importance of the instrument, he held many performances in the university, and was successful in keeping the audience spellbound on almost all occasions of the rendition. The new instrument was soon elevated on a par with the classical instruments like Veena and Mridangam. In the histrionic art, he opted for dance and evolved a new dance form named Tandav, which he would perform to control his anger when felt wronged and ridiculed by fellow students over his age or dress.