The Other Rāma: Matricide and Genocide in the Mythology of Paraśurāma

2002

Paraśuràma, later to be regularly reckoned as the 6th in standard daśāvatara lists, does not yet appear to entertain any special reationship to Viṣṇu in the earlier portions of the Epics, where the first details of the main features of his legend are to be found: i) the uncanny circumstances of his (and Viśvāmitra's) birth; ii) the killing of Kārtavīryārjuna and the 21-fold extermination of the kṣatriya-s; iii) the beheading of his mother Reṇukā; to which the Rāmāyaṇa adds the episode of the meeting of the two Rāmas and the defeat of the elder at the hands of the younger. Indeed, in the Karṇaparvan of the Mahābhārata he is rather depicted as Śiva's bhakta, as would seem more in character with the “deviant” traits of his behaviour. How then did he win acceptance among the ranks of Viṣṇu's avatāra-s? The Viṣṇudharmottara Purāṇa (VDh) I, 23-73, is arguably the first full-fledged account wherein we may inquire for the mode of his newly acquired dignity. As it turns out, such acceptance, which even later was seldom unreserved on account of the scarcely Viṣṇu-like ruthlessness of his exploits, is right from the beginning only partial, and qualified by certain doctrines which, if not altogether peculiar to the VDh, do nevertheless come in a distinctive flavour in that Purāṇa, such as the doctrine of the “thousands of manifestations” (pràdurbhāva-sahasrāṇi) and above all that of vaiṣṇava tejas. In the VDh Paraśurāma is certainly not what will be later termed a pūrṇāvatāra, not even an aṁśāvatāra, but just another instance — side by side with his arch-enemy Kārtavīrya — of those powerful beings which partake in an eminent degree of Viṣṇu's own world-sustaining energy.

downloadDownload PDFView PDFchevron_right

Oral–Written–Performed: The Rāmāyaṇa Narratives in Indian Literature and Arts, 2020

This essay focuses on modern depictions of one of the most controversial episodes in the Rāmāyaṇa tradition: the mutilation of the rākṣasī Śūrpaṇakhā at the hands of Lakṣmaṇa. As Kathleen Erndl (1991), Karline McLain (2001), and Heidi Pauwels (2008) have all shown, many popular and hegemonic Rāmāyaṇa tellings (including those by Vālmīki, Kampaṉ, Tulsīdās, Ramanand Sagar, and the Amar Chitra Katha comic books) present Śūrpaṇakhā as a dangerous, licentious “Other” woman and a villainess, especially when compared to the chaste, demure Sītā. In this essay, however, through an examination of seven recent Rāmāyaṇas in Hindi, Tamil, and English from the realms of film, television, and performance, I argue that a new, highly sympathetic representation of the sister of Rāvaṇa as a victim of sexual violence has emerged in modern India. I assert that this new Śūrpaṇakhā is a reflection of changing perceptions towards rape and sexual violence in contemporary India.

downloadDownload PDFView PDFchevron_right

[A Talk Given Online at the International Association of Comparative Mythology Conference on August 26, 2021.] Paraśurāma (“Rāma with the Axe”) is a divine hero of the Mahābhārata epic who is best known for exterminating the warrior class twenty-one times and decapitating his mother. In all of Hindu mythology, only Paraśurāma is both an avatāra of Viṣṇu and a cirañjīvin (immortal). After his destruction of the warrior class, Paraśurāma offers up the earth that he has conquered in sacrifice, depriving himself of the very ground on which he stands. As a result, he has to create a new land that he can only inhabit because it was not part of the earth when he gave it away. He does this by throwing his axe out into the sea and driving the water back to create a strip of coast. We see IE parallels to this in the Irish myth of Tuirbe Tragmār and the Greek story of Alcmaeon. In this paper, I explore the possible significance of those parallels.

downloadDownload PDFView PDFchevron_right

Review of Brian Collins "The Head Beneath the Altar. Hindu Mythology and the Critique of Sacrifice."

downloadDownload PDFView PDFchevron_right

Myth is a fictitiousbelieffore-grounded in the tradition of the past and that which has led human mind to accept the belief in a conscious manner. Myth is a story involving human limitations and super human strivings and accomplishments which suggest throughaction man’s attempt toexpress and thus controlhis anxiety about those features of his psychological andphysiological make up and his external environment which he cannot comprehend, accept or master. The characters of myth may be God’s menor monstrous creatures’with qualitiesof both. Today, the playwright’s derives their thoughts directly from these and builds up their thought.

downloadDownload PDFView PDFchevron_right

IACM Annual Conference 2023, 2023

Bhairava is defined-in his Puranic origin-myth and as reflected in his pan-Indian iconographic representations by his violent act of brahmanicide, the most heinous crime in Hindu tradition. This impure tantric god of terror abruptly cuts off the fifth head of Brahmā, embodying the values of the Vedic brahmins, who in the reformed classical era insisted on the public ideal of non-violence (ahimsā). Bhairava, who has assimilated diverse bloodthirsty tribal deities across the subcontinent, was nevertheless celebrated as the supreme Absolute by brahmin adepts of transgressive sacrality (TS). This criminal god must wander about expiating for twelve years before arriving in Kāśī, where he is not only absolved but promoted to policeman-magistrate of the sacred city. For Dumézil, the dual-deity Mitra-Varuṇa represents respectively the pure, peaceful versus transgressive, magical poles of the priestly caste. For FBJ Kuiper, on the contrary, they represent opposed poles of a dualistic cosmos: ordered upper world versus chaotic underworld. The deformed brahmin scapegoat of the Vedic horsesacrifice, who personified this evil dangerous aspect of Varuṇa, is the prototype of the (ritual) 'clown' (vidūṣaka) who takes on the royal protagonist's impurity. These two paradigms-sociological and cosmogonic-are incompatible. The TS perspective subsumes and harmonizes both approaches: Mitra represents the pure sociocosmic ritual order that is willfully violated by the Varuṇa-vidūṣaka. The paradox is that both poles are incarnated by the same person, exemplified by Abhinavagupta (11 th C) as both lawgiver and lawbreaker. Kuiper was examiner of Sunthar's PhD thesis (1984) on the vidūṣaka as embodiment of both Brahmā and Varuṇa. When we first visited Dumézil (1984), he accepted our above attempt to reinstate his pivotal volume on Mitra-Varuṇa that he had disowned due to his subsequent sociologizing of Indo-European mythology. TS has since been applied to such violent deities also in 'primitive' societies around the world. This paper argues that Kuiper's rapprochement implies a hidden transgressive dimension invested in the Varuṇa pole of the dual divinity. 'Tribal' outsider Bhairava has inherited the mythicoritual function of the supreme Vedic insider, Varuṇa.

downloadDownload PDFView PDFchevron_right

Religions, 2020

The asura’s demise at the hands of the goddess is a theme frequently revisited in Hindu myth. It is the chronicle of a death foretold. So too is the Bhadrakāḷīmāhātmya, a sixteenth century regional purāṇa from Kerala, that narrates the tale of fierce goddess Bhadrakāḷī and her predestined triumph over asura king Dārika. Violence is ubiquitous in this narrative, which was designed with one goal in mind: glorifying the ultimate act of defeating the asura enemy. In its course the story exhibits many kinds of violence: self-harm, cosmic warfare, murder, etc. This paper argues that (1) violence comes to serve as a structural aspect in the text. Reappearing consistently at key moments in the narrative, violence both frames and structures the goddess’s tale. Yet, it is not only the violent act that dominates, it is its accompaniment by equal acts of regeneration that dictates the flow of the narrative, creating a pulsating course of endings and beginnings; (2) these cycles, that strategica...

downloadDownload PDFView PDFchevron_right

The Quarterly Journal of the Mythci Society, 2015

downloadDownload PDFView PDFchevron_right

Asura: Tale of the Vanquished the story of Ravana and his people (2012), by Anand Neelakantan, is an attempt to deconstruct and reconstruct the myth of The Ramayana. In the epic, The Ramayana, Rama is portrayed as the personification of good and Ravana is considered evil. This novel brings out a different perspective to the familiar epic, The Ramayana, by narrating the story from the point of view of Ravana. The analysis focuses mainly on Ravana as an ideal father to his daughter Sita. The cultural identity of the Asura Ravana is re-written by Anand Neelakantan using the epic The Ramayana. This paper attempts to study the rewriting of the epic Ramayana, in the contemporary postcolonial context of writing back to the centre- and to debate on the identity of Ravana, the anti-hero. This paper explores Ravana as a subaltern and also the dual identity of subaltern and reassessment of native cultural identity. The purpose of the paper is to analyse the complexities of Ravana’s political and cultural identity and to initiate a new discourse on subaltern by raising the issues of the dual identity of Ravana.

downloadDownload PDFView PDFchevron_right