jaya atula-shakti dIdhiti pi~njara |
bhuja-daNDa-chaNDa-raNa-rabhasa |
sura-vadana kumuda-kAnana-vikAsanendo kumAra |
jaya ditija-kula-mahodadhi-vaDavAnala |
ShaNmukha madhura-rava-mayUra-ratha |
sura-mukuTa-koTi-ghaTTita-charaNa-nakhA~Nkura mahAsana |
jaya lalita-chUDa kalApa-nava-vimala-dala-kamala-kAnta |
daitya-vaMsha-duHsaha-dAvAnala |
jaya vishAkha vibho |
jaya sakala-loka-tAraka |
jaya devasenA-nAyaka skanda |
jaya gaurI-nandana ghaNTApriya |
priya vishAkha vibho |
dhR^ita-patAka prakIrNa-paTala |
kanaka-bhUShaNa bhAsura-dinakarach-ChAya |
jaya janita saMbhrama lIlA-lUnAkhilArAte |
jaya sakala-loka-tAraka ditijAsuravara-tArakAntaka skanda |
jaya bAla-saptavAsara |
jaya bhuvanAvali-shoka-vinAshana ||

Victory! him glowing golden from the radiance of his incomparable spear;
the one impetuous in battle with terrible, staff-like arms;
kumAra, who is the moon that causes the thicket of lotuses formed by the faces of the devas to bloom!
Victory! One who is the equine fire to the ocean the clan of diti’s descendents;
the six-headed one, with a sweet-crying peacock for a chariot;
One seated on the great throne with sprout-like toe-nails worshiped by the bowing crowned heads for crores of gods!
Victory! One with a charming crest, one shining with a garland of fresh, blemishless lotus petals;
the irresistible conflagration that burns the daitya clan!
Victory! vishAkha the opulent one!
Victory! protector of the whole world!
Victory! Lord of the deva army, skanda!
Victory! Son of the fair goddess, one delighted in the clang of bells;
dear, vishAkha, the opulent one;
holding a flag, with a diverse retinue;
ornamented with gems, with the complexion of the glowing sun!
Victory! One who has been born, the ever-active one, one who playfully lops off all enemies.
Victory! The protector of all worlds; the killer of tAraka the foremost of the diti-born asura-s, skanda !
Victory! The seven day old child!
Victory! The destroyer of the sorrows of the worlds!
[All epithets are in the singular vocative]

The kumAra-kANDa of the matysa purANa (159) preserves the above fairly ancient gAthA to kumAra.

This is also accompanied by the following stuti:

namaH kumArAya mahAprabhAya skandAya cha skandita-dAnavAya |
navArka-vidyud-dyutaye namo .astu te namo .astu te ShaNmukha kAmarUpa ||
pinaddha-nAnAbharaNAya bhartre namo raNe dAnava-dAraNAya |
namo .astu te .arka-pratima-prabhAya namo .astu guhyAya guhAya tubhyam ||
namo .astu trailokya-bhayApahAya namo .astu te bAla kR^ipAparAya |
namo vishAlAmalalochanAya namo vishAkhAya mahAvratAya ||
namo namaste .astu manoharAya namo namaste .astu raNotkaTAya |
namo mayUroj-jvala-vAhanAya namo .astu keyUradharAya tubhyam ||
namo dhR^itodagra-patAkine namaste namaH prabhAva-praNatAya te .astu |
namaste namaste vara-vIrya-shAline kR^ipAparo no bhava bhavyamUrte ||

The nAstika-s, smarting from their poor performance relative to the sanAtana-dharma, resorted to several distinct tactics: imitation, appropriation and distortion. But one of the problems they faced was that their hard-won converts tended to lapse back into the Astika ground state – this was especially so when the nAstika-s started imitating and appropriating the Astika traditions. Thus, even the virulent anti-Astika polemicist, the jaina yogin haribhadra sUri, concedes that the jaina-s might worship Astika deities, or even the tathAgata, in addition to the nagna. But still they needed mechanisms to keep their flock from dropping the ford-makers or the tathAgata-s from their respective pantheons because that was the most likely outcome. In particular, the itihAsa-s being the most important vehicle of the sanAtana-dharma across all socio-genetic strata they focused their attack on them. Thus, we hear buddhaghoSha proscribing the saugata-s from listening to the mahAbhArata and the rAmAyaNa. The jaina-s in contrast also created their own distorted versions of these texts in which the original heroes are down-graded and made to give way to promulgators of jina doctrines. Another approach was to insert tales into traditional collections of stories or invent new story collections to show the original deities and traditions of the sanAtana-dharma in poor light or as being ineffective. We review below some such creations of the jaina-s, which also throw some light on the sociology of the era. One such is from the jaina bR^ihatkathA of hariSheNa – massive work from the first half of the 900s of CE that was printed in the 1940s (kathA 54):

In Gujarat there was a town called guDakheDaka, rich in wealth and food, and endowed with many scholars. Therein lived a zealous jaina couple, the man called jinadatta and his wife jinadattA. They had a daughter called jinamatI who was skilled in various kalA-s and also a zealous jaina. In the town was also a rich vaNija known as nAgadatta with a beautiful wife called nAgadattA. They had a son called rudradatta who was handsome, virtuous and an ardent worshiper of rudra. Once nAgadatta asked jinadatta to give jinamatI in marriage to rudradatta. However, jinadatta refused saying that there was no way a zealous jaina could marry a pious shaiva, adding that they felt that those who worship rudra are dismal idiots. But the young rudradatta butted in saying: “Indeed all religions lead to the same end; there is no difference between them. Uncle I will become a jaina today”. Saying so (in reality he was motivated by lust towards jinamatI), he went to the jaina school and and acquired jaina dIkSha from the teacher samAdhigupta and gave up the shaiva-mata. When jinadatta heard of this he gave his daughter to rudradatta. Upon marriage, rudradatta gave up the jina-mata and returned to the shaiva fold.

One day after lunch, when jinamatI was resting, rudradatta decided to introduce her to the shaiva tradition. He said: “beautiful girl, shiva had taught a great dIkSha, which brings and end to duHkha and uplifts the sinful. This dIkSha can succeed even if one has committed crores of sins and those who are imbued with zealous hatred.” Then he cited to her a shloka regarding this from a saiddhAntika tantra. He then told her to give up the jina-mata, which is not for knowledgeable people and accept saiddhAntika dIkSha that brings the bliss of mokSha. jinamatI retorted by saying that she had no intention of forsaking the jina-mata and advised rudradatta to forsake shiva and follow the jaina path, which she said was the was actual way of the intelligent people. The charming husband and beautiful wife then started quarreling and arguing a lot about their respective mata-s each trying to lecture the other on their respective traditions. After some days rudradatta angrily remarked that if he ever caught jinmati go to the jaina shrine or giving food to jaina mendicants he would evict her from the house. However, he would dote on her if she went to a rudra temple or gave food to wandering pAshupata-s. She threatened to commit suicide if he forced her to do so. She then proposed that if he eschewed visiting shaiva temples then she would not visit shrines of the nagna. Then they settled on a compromise with each worshiping as per their own mata.

To the east of the town was a dense jungle in which lived violent tribesmen. One day a tribal band raided the town and set fire to it. As the fire started nearing rudradatta’s house, the beautiful jinamatI told her husband that the deity who saves them from the fire will be the one whom they would follow. To this rudradatta declared that the fire was a small problem and that he would worship shiva to quench it. Facing the southern face of rudra he worshiped rudra and the lokapAla-s with various mantra-s. He called upon rudra to protect him and his wife in total conviction of the shaiva dIkSha. Each time he recited a name of rudra the fire on intensified and threatened to engulf them. At this jinamatI said may be the rudra mantra-s do not work so deploy other deties. rudradatta invoked brahmA, kumAra, viShNu, agni, sUrya, soma, gaurI and then the navagraha-s but their mantra-s also failed to quench the fire. Then terrified he said all these deities whom most people worship are not real gods. He implored jinamatI to invoke the nagna to save them from the conflagration. She then renounced all attachment to pleasure of the world invoked the ford-makers. Standing in deep dhyAna she made an offering to the nagna and right away the fire and the hordes of tribesmen vanished. At this miracle rudradatta gave up the shaiva-mata and became a jaina. Likewise many others from the town also did so seeing jinamatI’s miracle.

A second sample which we present is from samarAichchakahA a prAkR^ita collection of stories written by haribhadra sUri, which is also retold by hariSheNa in his bR^ihatkathAkosha:
The king yashodhara surprised his wife amR^itamatI while she was committing adultery. To save herself she poisoned the king and his mother chandramatI when they were sacrificing a piShTa-kukkuTa to chaNDikA. yashodhara was reborn as a peacock and chandramatI as a bitch. In the mean time yashodhara’s son yashomati ascended the throne as the king and acquired these animals as pets. The peacock had a brief recollection of his past birth and seeing former adulteress wife having sex with her lover pecked both of them. They struck the peacock wounding it. It was then attacked by the bitch (chandramati reborn) and killed. The king disturbed in his game of dice by all this clubbed the bitch killing it. Then yashodhara reincarnated as a mongoose to blind parents, while chandramatI is reincarnated as a cobra. One day while the mongoose was in a fight with this cobra, a hyena attacked them and killed both. Then yashodhara was reborn as a fish while chandramati reincarnated as a crocodile. The crocodile met an untimely death and soon was reborn as a wild female goat. The fish (yashodhara) was caught and fed to the adulteress queen mother amR^itamatI. He was then born as a wild male goat. In this life he was in copulation with the female goat (chandramatI reborn) when a rival male goat struck him with his horns and killed him even as he was discharging his semen. Now yashodhara was reborn as his own son via chandramati in female goat birth.

The king yashomati on a hunt killed the female goat chandramati but spared the baby goat yashodhara. Now chandramati was reborn as a she-buffalo. One day yashomati was planning a sacrifice of twenty buffaloes for the great goddess kAtyAyanI. One of the sacrificial days amR^itamatI the former queen did not want buffalo meat and instead requested mutton. So the goat (yashodhara reborn) got killed and fed to his former wife. Likewise, chandramatI reborn as a buffalo was sacrificed to kAtyAyanI and eaten by the royal court. Both of them were reborn as a cock and hen reared by the hunter chaNDakarman. One day chaNDakarman met a jaina yogin in the mold of haribhadra sUri, who started teaching him jaina yoga. In course of this he noticed the cock and hen and tells chaNDakarman their past lives and said that they were suffering these births due their adherence to kShatriya dharma. The birds hearing of their past life decided to accept the jaina-mata and in the joy of conversion started crowing. At this point yashomati is hunting with his wife and killed both birds with a single arrow. They were reborn as twins of yashomati’s wife.

One day when yashomati was hunting he ran into a jaina muni who asked him to stop hunting. Enraged he sent his dogs to kill the jaina, but they refused to do so. Seeing this he spares the muni who told him of the past births of his twin children. He also said that their births were all due to worshiping a cruel goddess with a piShTa-kukkuTa. The king became a jaina right away. His children became jaina ascetics and made the entire kingdom forsake vaidika and tAntrika animal sacrifices. They eventually committed jaina suicide and attained a divine state, which is followed by the whole kingdom becoming jaina.

Hindu historical tradition holds that bauddha-s of the sindhu had made common cause with the the Arab marUnmatta-s as they launched invasion after invasion into jambudvIpa. This is not entirely surprising given that the bauddha-s (at least the sthaviravAdin-s) from the sindhu (along with those of shrIlankA) had show a notable iconoclastic streak before they themselves fell prey to the buddha-busting beards. We have accounts that they burned vajrayANa tantra-s and demolished images of heruka-s such as hevajra at gaya. So it is hardly surprising that they made common cause with the marUnmatta-s blissfully unaware that the fate that they hoped for the Astika-s was to soon fall upon them, no just in the sindhu but throughout jambudvIpa. We also have some evidence for earlier iconoclastic activity on their part even though this is narrated in a perhaps anachronistic fashion in the bauddha chronicles such as the history of the lAma tAranAtha and chIna chronicles of the major saMghakAra-s.

Legend holds that upon the death of satI rudra was disconsolate and wandered carrying her calcined body. To relieve rudra of his sorrow viShNu hurled his chakra and cut the body of satI into fifty one pieces that fell all over bhAratavarSha defining its sacred geography by founding the sites of the shaktI pITha-s. Her brain is said to have fallen to the western boundary of bhAratavarSha and founded the pITha of hi~NgulA. It lies in the Makran desert (today in the Balochistan province of TSP) and is associated with several mud volcanoes. The nAstika-s narrate an account of how this shrine was “subjugated” by a tAthAgata:

“The shAkyasiMha had prophesied to his cousin Ananda that 300 years after his death (parinirvANa) a great bauddha would emerge who would spread their shAsana all over India. In a city called bhR^igukachCha in Gujarat there was a chieftain called darshana belonging to the kShatriya clan of the pANDu-s. He had a son called sudarshana who was richly endowed in wealth and had a retinue of beautiful women. One day while going to his garden with his ladies he saw an bauddha arihant known as shukhAyana. He bowed to arihant who offered him a lecture on the bauddha-mata. sudarshana underwent an instant conversion and sought to renounce the world and become an arihant himself. He then sought his father’s permission who instead bound him in chains. Then sudarshana showed miracles like levitation and emitting light and the like and his father acceded to him becoming an arihant. Thereafter he also converted his father to the bauddha way. Eventually, he became the supreme leader of the bauddha saMgha and acquired a great following among all the four varNa-s. In the sindhu lived a mighty yakShiNI hi~NgulAchI with great powers of mAyA. She cause epidemics in various lands and when people tried to flee those lands she assumed dreadful forms and blocked their paths. They used to offer her food drawn in a large cart by six oxen and also a man, a woman and horse. Then sudarshana decided to crush her. So he took alms of cooked food from a village in the sindhu and went to the temple of hi~NgulAchI and began eating it. He then desecrated her place by washing his mouth there. Furious, she showered stones and weapons at sudarshana. But he being an arihant meditated in undisturbed on compassion and these showered on him as followers. Then using his own miracle powers he set fire to the place. Burnt by it hi~NgulAchI became afraid and sought refuge in the arihant. He preached the bauddha-mata to her and converted her to the the bauddha way. Since her conversion no flesh or blood has ever been offered to her. Realizing that after him there would be none to crush the yakSha-s and nAga-s who did not follow the bauddha-mata he went on a mission of subduing 500 of such and established vihAra-s for the saMgha to propagate the buddha’s way. Then he went to chIna-s and spread the bauddha-mata among them to an extant.”

What is interesting in this account is that the description of the hi~NgulA pITha is fairly specific: 1) It is described as being in the west of bhAratavarSha in the sindhu province. 2) The custom of offering a large amount of food is mention – a practice which continued to a degree until recently despite the heavy hand of Islam over the region. Offerings were made in large amounts and carried to the mud volcano where they were offered directly into the geothermal vent. 3) The hurling of stones and weapons by hi~NgulA is probably an allusion to the volcanic activity of the site. The event is supposed to have taken place at the time of ashoka’s reign because sudarshana is supposed to have attained nirvANa just before ashoka’s death. It is possible that the bauddha chronicles composed much later anachronistically placed this attack on hi~NgulA in ashoka’s time and attributed it to an important arihant who supposed to have been greater the subsequent arihants. The figures are primarily early sthaviravAdin-s whose history was supposedly recorded by a kShemendrabhadra, the source of tAranAtha. It is possible the sthaviravAdins attributed the “conquest” of hi~NgulA back in time to sudarshana and this was taken up by the vajrayANa chroniclers later.

The defining element of our identity was the formation of the rAShTra by the kuru and the pa~nchAla, the foremost of the bhArata clans. It is the legacy of this rAShTra of the bhArata-s, rather than documents like the constitution of India, that forms the foundation on which our modern state rests. A mlechCha gentleman, evidently intending to pay a compliment, told us that he was impressed by fact that our “founding fathers” had managed to come up with a constitution that has managed to hold our country together, which by all logic should have broken up by now. We told that he was right about the “founding fathers” part but only that they go much farther back in time. Indeed, the farther our people recede from the wisdom of the kuru and the pa~nchAla enshrined in the “fifth veda” the more effete and irrelevant we are becoming in the world. Hence, those who still bother about such things might peruse of some of it:

Thus spoke nakula the fourth pANDava:

rAj~naH pramAda-doSheNa dasyubhiH parimuShyatAm |
asharaNyaH prajAnAM yaH sa rAjA kalir uchyate ||
The ruler whose delusion results in his people being plundered by dasyu-s, and [the ruler] who does not offer protection to his people [from dasyu-s] is said to be the manifestation of kali.

Thus spoke draupadI the princess of the pa~nchAla-s:

nAdaNDaH kShatriyo bhAti nAdaNDo bhUtim ashnute |
nAdaNDasya prajA rAj~naH sukham edhanti bhArata ||
Without punitive legislation a kShatriya can shine forth, without punitive ability he cannot attain power. The people of a ruler without punitive ability cannot attain happiness.

asatAM pratiShedhash cha satAM cha paripAlanam |
eSha rAj~nAM paro dharmaH samare chApalAyanam ||
Restraining the evil doers, cultivating the good, and showing agility in war: these are the highest duties of rulers.

kurute mUDham evaM hi yaH shreyo nAdhigachChati |
dhUpair a~njanayogaish cha nasya-karmabhir eva cha |
bheShajaiH sa chikitsyaH syAd ya unmArgeNa gachChati ||
One who due to stupidity [wishes to abandon the upholding of his state for asceticism as yudhiShThira wished to do upon realizing that he cause the death of karNa and others] will never attain any felicity. [Such a person should] be diagnosed as one who has taken the path of madness and should be given medical treatment using inhalants, medicinal pastes, drips delivered via the the nose, and other drugs.

*It is interesting to note that the methods for drug delivery seen in the medical saMhitA-s for the treatment of unmAda are recognized here by draupadi – their earliest forms likely arose in the kuru-pa~nchAla state.

Thus spoke bhImasena the second pANDava:

dvividho jAyate vyAdhiH shArIro mAnasas tathA |
parasparaM tayor janma nirdvaMdvaM nopalabhyate ||
There are two types of disease – of the body and of the mind. Each give rise to the other neither exists independently of the other.

shArIrAj jAyate vyAdhir mAnaso nAtra saMshayaH |
mAnasAj jAyate vyAdhiH shArIra iti nishchayaH ||
The mental diseases arise from bodily morbidity without doubt; likewise from mental disease emerge bodily diseases – this is certain.

shArIra mAnase duHkhe yo .atIte anushochati |
duHkhena labhate duHkhaM dvAv anarthau prapadyate ||
He who keeps pondering on past bodily or mental afflictions has new sorrow emerging from his thinking of old sorrows; thus he [ends up] saddled with two tragedies

*Here bhImasena recognizes that mental disease ultimately originates from a bodily problem. He also states that depression can give rise to a physical condition. Thus, he calls upon yudhiShThira to cast aside his depression and move on in life.

Thus spoke arjuna the third pANDava:

kShatra-dharmo mahA-raudraH shastra-nitya iti smR^itaH |
vadhash cha bharata-shreShTha kAle shastreNa saMyuge ||
It is known that the duty of the kShatriya is very fierce involving the constant use of weapons. Of foremost bhArata, [it is known] that when their time comes they are killed in battle while engaging with weapons.

brAhmaNasyaapi ched rAjan kShatra-dharmeNa tiShThataH |
prashastaM jIvitaM loke kShatraM hi brahma-saMsthitam ||
Even a brAhmaNa who is firm in following the duties of a kShatriya leads a praiseworthy life as after all in this world kShatra power is also stationed on foundation of brahma power.

kShatriyasya visheSheNa hR^idayaM vajra-saMhatam|
jitvArIn kShatra-dharmeNa prApya rAjyam akaNTakam ||
In particular a kShatriya’s heart is adamantine. By apply the kShatra-dharma he conquers foes and acquires a dominion free from trouble-makers.

Thus spoke vyAsa kR^iShNa-dvaipAyana:

yaj~no vidyA samutthAnam asaMtoShaH shriyaM prati |
daNDa-dhAraNam atyugraM prajAnAM paripAlanam ||
veda-j~nAnaM tathA kR^itsnaM tapaH sucharitaM tathA |
draviNopArjanaM bhUri pAtreShu pratipAdanam |
etAni rAj~nAM karmANi sukR^itAni vishAM pate||
Fire rituals, learning, exercise, being unsatisfied with [limited] prosperity, upholding punitive legislation, fierceness in battle and working for the welfare of ones people. Knowledge of the veda and rituals, performance of tapas, good conduct, acquisition of plentiful wealth and its distribution to deserving individuals – these are the duties of a kShatriya to be performed well O ruler of the people.

teShAM jyAyas tu kaunteya daNDadhAraNam uchyate
balaM hi kShatriye nityaM bale daNDaH samAhitaH ||
Amongst these, kaunteya, the wielding of punitive power is said to be the foremost. Strength must always be there in a kShatriya as punitive power depends on strength.

the gAthA of bR^ihaspati a~ngirasa:
bhUmir etau nigirati sarpo bilashayAn iva |
rAjAnaM chAviroddhAraM brAhmaNaM chApravAsinam ||

Just as a snake gobbles a burrowing rodent [the ways of] the world swallow a king who given to excessive non-violence and a brAhmaNa who is excessively devoted to one place [i.e. patron].

*For the purposes of this note the word ape means all animals closer to or within the clade containing the gibbon and man than to the clade containing the langur and the macaque. Monkey means all animals closer to or within the clade containing the langur and the macaque than to the clade containing the gibbon and man. Any animal closer to the monkeys and apes to the exclusion of the New World platyrrhines, but not a monkey or an ape as defined above, is termed a stem catarrhine.

New fossils from the Rukwa Rift in the Tanzanian part of Rift Valley described by Stevens et al are of interest with respect to the timing of the split between apes and monkeys. One of the most basal catarrhines, Catopithecus, was found in Fayum, Egypt, dating to about 34 Mya, i.e., the beginning of the Oligocene. Molecular evidence strongly suggests that the divergence between apes and monkeys happened sometime between 30-25 Mya. However, between 34 Mya, which is the age of the one of the earliest stem catarrhines, down to the earliest fossil monkey, Prohylobates (18 Mya), and the extremely archaic ape, Kalepithecus (~20 Mya), there are no fossils of clear cut apes or monkeys. Thus, we have lacked fossil from the critical period around the time when the molecular evidence suggests they diverged. This does not mean that there are no catarrhine fossils from the 34-20 Mya time window. We have basal catarrhines from the Fayum beds in Egypt such as Aegyptopithecus from around 30 Mya. We also have an enigmatic radiation of basal catarrhines that appears to have begun around 22 Mya, the pliopithecoids, and persisted till at least 7.5 Mya. The earliest member of this clade is Lomorupithecus from Uganda and the latest is Laccopithecus from Lufeng, China dating to the late Miocene. This suggests that the pliopithecoid radiation of catarrhines migrated to Asia and persisted alongside other more derived catarrhines including apes and monkeys. Closer to the crown group comprised of apes and monkeys are two fossils namely Saadanius, from what is today the hellhole of Saudi Arabia (~28 Mya), and Kamoyapithecus from Kenya (~25 Mya). Then there are two clades that cannot be specifically placed as being closer to or earlier branching than either monkeys or apes. These are Limnopithecus evansi and the dendropithecid clade comprised of Dendropithecus, Micropithecus and Simiolus and Limnopithecus legetet. Better fossils would probably be required to tell whether they are apes or monkeys or fall just outside of both of them. While they preserve anatomical features that might have been close in certain respects to the common ancestor of the apes and monkeys, all of these are from around 20-17 Mya, so they are not temporally very close to the branch point of the crown clades.

If these proposed affinities of Nsungwepithecus and Rukwapithecus are true then it would mean that the ape-monkey split happened before 25.2 Mya, pushing the paleontological evidence for this split within the range estimated from the molecular evidence. In our opinion Stevens et al convincing demonstrate anatomical similarity between Nsungwepithecus and the basal monkeys of the victoriapithecid clade (which includes forms like Victoriapithecus and Zaltanpithecus). Of these Victoriapithecus is known from well-preserved remains from around 15 Mya and it a mid-sized monkey. Nsungwepithecus is clearly larger than Victoriapithecus and suggests that such a lineage of monkeys had persisted for more than 10 Myr. Likewise there are distinct similarities between Rukwapithecus and Rangwapithecus thus pulling it into the Nyanzapithecine/Mabokopithecine clade. Given that Rangwapithecus is from about 20 Mya, the discovery of Rukwapithecus suggests that a such a clade of basal apes was more than 5 Myr older. Given that the latest member of this clade Nyanzapithecus harrisoni is from around 13 Mya, this clade was rather long-lived (more than 12 Myr). Thus, at their upper end they overlapped temporally with more derived apes such as Morotopithecus and Afropithecus which are closer to the crown formed by extant lesser and great apes.

Continued…

The triangle of the Swan, the Eagle and the bright-eyed vulture had mountained the inky heavens. Seeing that it was late valsha decided to lay himself to rest on his litter. His body was racked with all manner of aches. The day that followed was not one to worry much about, so he unhurriedly lapsed into the hypogogic state. Most unexpectedly a beautiful woman appeared before him. She was not anyone whom he had ever seen in wakeful life. Nor had anyone like her every manifested in a dream nor in hypnogogia before. She had a long flowing black hair in a dense masses like the great bee-hive on the vast ashvattha tree near the pAShaNDa-gR^iha. Her eyes had a sparkle to them like heads of the asterism of the Twins. Her body was slim and shapely and wonderfully sculpted with breasts like the vessels that lustrate viShNupatnI. valsha was even more surprised when he heard her speak – it was in the gIrvANa bhAShA. valsha realized that in this tongue even the mundane sounded poetic. She introduced herself: “aham asmi paShupatAnAM pAtAla-rudrasya gahvare vAsA kukkuravati | asau gahvarasya samIpe eka uddhataH kedAro .asti | asmin kedAre vishAlo vaTavR^ikSho .asti | tasya adho .asti mama pIThikA |” Hearing her he wondered if she was a yakShiNI or a pishAchI or perhaps a shape-shifting rAkShasI. Neither her name nor her form was like any yakShiNI he had encountered before. Finally she directed him: “shayAyA uttiShTha, etasmin chaShake saMnihitaM rasaM piba, mama a~NgulyA mandaM chumba, mama upAnahanau gADhaM gR^ihNa! tvayA saha akAshe uDDayiShyamy ahaM hA hA! pashya pashya prakR^ites sarvAnAM niyamAnAM ati-la~nghanaM kariShyAmi | mama patham na j~nAtuM shaknoShi |”

She flew carrying valsha at a dizzying pace. Finally they landed in a place that looked strangely familiar to valsha; yet he was unable to make precisely identify it. It was a school building with an adjacent ground that looked like rat-nibbled roTikA. In the mid 1930s the Vatican had financed a bunch of German missionaries to go forth to the holy land of bhAratavarSha and convert the heathens. Uwe Christian led the operation with his fellows brothers and fathers. He was also a double agent for Das dritte Reich. He tried hard to entice some brAhmaNa-s to the fold of the preta, hoping that if he converted the brAhmaNa-s then he would gain easy control over the “superstitious lay”. With this intention he started a school named after one of the many dead pretAcharin-s who had been proclaimed to be a saint by the Vatican rulers due to performance of an even lamer miracle than those the unwashed Hindus were supposed to believe in. In this school he offered a proper western education that brAhmaNa parents were supposed to seek like a good bride for their dear sons. 1958 Christian was assassinated by an Israeli letter bomb. Shortly thereafter his school was bought by a Portuguese missionary group from Goa, who continued their operations in the service of the long decomposed corpse of Nazareth. But not long after that Goa was finally reconquered by the Hindus restoring the continuity of peninsular bhAratavarSha, which their old poet kAlidAsa had likened to a drawn bowstring. With that the school and the associated church declined into disuse. A few years later in a great monsoon storm the spire of the church was knocked down reminding the Hindus of might of the devaheti that strikes from above. The people in that part of the city were growing prosperous again after the dismal years that followed independence and felt the need for more schools for their children. So they decided to use the old school’s infrastructure for a new one. Having renovated it they reinitiated education in those premises in the form of a secular institution.

In the school, in the 9th class were studying students who went by the names saMpadA durnAmikA, satyo daridrasaMdha, harir babhru and mahAmada Agomado marusaMbhava. At that point kukkuravati briefly possessed their teacher. Their teacher then addressed the class indicating the topic for a small essay: “rAShTrIya dhvajasya pradhanaM arthavattvaM katamaM?”
Then valsha and kukkuravati unseen by the rest went to look at what those four students wrote.

saMpadA durnAmikA wrote: The national flag is symbol of India’s freedom. The length of the flag is 1.5 times that of its width. It is to be respected by all and never hoisted in peoples homes. No one should trod on it, burn it or defile it in any other way. It should be made by hand using cloth spun by the Gandhian wheel. If it is made using any other material then the person is liable to be interred in a jail for 3 years [Pointing to this sentence kukkuravati laughed and tapped valsha on his shoulder. valsha wondered if that was the real fate that awaited him for having flown a paper flag on some national day! saMpadA saw no one but heard the laugh of a woman. She wondered who could that be? May be it is my mind saying all this is so funny]. A real India flag is only be made in the state of karNATaka. People have to stand erect and sing the national anthem composed by shrI ravIndranAth when the flag is being hoisted.

satyo daridrasaMdha wrote: The flag was made by some Telugu guy [He had forgotten the guy's name. So he made it up: If there could be a Gandhi of the frontier in Afghanistan, why could we not have a Gandhi in Andhra. So let us call him the Andhra Gandhi]. At first B.G. Tilak had suggested a saffron flag with the picture of gaNesha. Aurobindo and Vankimchandra wanted the image to be that of a fierce kAlI with an upraised scimitar. Some other Hindu leaders wanted a cow on it. But the secularists wanted none of this. Eventually a flag was made to incorporate Gandhi’s wheel, a sign that the technology invented in the Indus valley civilization was still in unmodified use, the saffron color of the Hindus, the green color of the Mohammedans and the white for whatever other religions existed in the land.

mahAmada Agomado marusaMbhava wrote:

continued…

The coming elections in the secular, socialist, democratic republic of India certainly seem to be a rather important fork in the road. A member of the clan mentioned that an exuberant Hindu politician had declared that this election will mark the beginning of the great rise of the Hindus. This made us give some thought about whether things were really looking so rosy. Of course we can hardly lay claims to prophetic insights, which belong to the domain of the sUta-s of the bhaviShyata purANa; however, we do have some expectations based on the current situation that hardly match the estimates of that politician. The short-live collaboration between the Hindus and the Islamic Jihad during the First War of Independence in 1857 CE came to a catastrophic closure with the genocidal victory of the English. However, it had poisoned the wells of Hindu sustenance beyond what the English could inflict. It laid the seeds of the idea that somehow the marUnmatta-s were acceptable brethren of Hindus despite their being infected by the West Asian meme. Hence, rather than seeking to cure their infection, or quarantining, or removing the infected it was thought that it was alright to have them live side-by-side the uninfected. To add insult to injury the wonders of western education brought with it the side-effect of making the Hindus immunocompromised to the toxicity of marUnmAda and also lowered their group fitness. This was particularly terrible because the marUnmAda infection increased the group fitness of the marUnmatta-s. This meant that living beside their infected brethren was an eventual death sentence for the H. The events that played to close to independence only enhanced this. The marUnmatta-s seized large chunks of our land for themselves reminding Hindus that the battle with the English was only a passing sideshow and that the millennial Jihad was still unfinished but not unforgotten business. The immunocompromised and fitness-depressed H instead were saddled with a secular republic where they continued living beside the marUnmatta-s. In the midst of all this, they were further stabbed from within by the greed of various jati-s who exploited the reservation provision to ensure that residual bhArata does not put forth its best people to meet the challenges of the world. Rather it placed ill-trained and cognitively weaker members of society to face the harsh challenges of a real world, where even in the Asian backyard the threat from the the cognitively well-endowed prAchya-s presented itself. It was unable to channelize its cognitive elite who left it shores to serve the West (or in the least seek a home in the West for there was really nothing for them in bhArata).

The Hindu imitation of the English democratic system, by turning its back on the collective wisdom of manu, yAj~nvalkya, bhIShma, viShNugupta and a host of others resulted in a fundamental misunderstanding of numerous issues:
1) Democracy works best in relatively uniform populations with the same basic cultural bonds. It will start having problems as soon as diversity is introduced in the form of groups that are held by fundamentally different bonds from that of the majority. Experiments establishing this can be seen in the form the events in the past decade in France and Scandinavia among others. As this type diversity increases democracy will collapse.

2) Genuine democracy will lead to “systems failure” when there is great cognitive differential between the masses and elite. This has been diagnosed and correctly described by Amy Chua several years ago.

3) Democracy will have negative effects if the host population has a depressed group fitness relative to the two West Asian monotheisms which reside in its midst.

4)The Aryans upon their entry into India actually gauged the nature of the social diversity pretty well and created systems that could create functional systems despite this diversity, which would have normally crippled formation of any mega-system. In this the democratic system was restricted to local governments. However, on the global scales the meritorious rAjan, and saMrAT were the one who held sway. Thus, the democracy worked within relatively uniform local groups while they were held in place in the mega-system by the mobile elite comprised of the brahma-kShatra that offered a unifying large-scale ideology and law-enforcement for allowing the vaNija to carry out his trans-regional economic activity. The Indo-Aryans also weakened the transformation of diversity into separate identity by fostering their functional diversification and thereby creating dependencies between the elements within the overall diversity. This large-scale ideology was reinforced by the grand shrauta rituals. Hence, a Hindu modern nation can only survive if it shelves any notions of secularity and reinforces its identity through the performance of grand national rituals of the type of the rAjasUya, vAjapeya and ashvamedha or the tAntrika temple rituals that bring together all sections of the society.

Many years ago in our old home we came across a book won by the bhArgava-trasadasyau in a contest that had the autobiographies of many a Euro-American figure. At that point we were impressed by certain threads in the German poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke and looked up that book for some biographical information on him. While doing so we stumbled upon another Germanic figure, Oswald Spengler, whose biography was contained in that volume. We became intrigued by this figure and read more of his work. We perused his “The decline of the West: form and actuality”. It was a tedious effort for us; covering it English translation, we re-examined parts of it in the original German upon the inspiration of a German gentleman who was then visiting our city. The German said that Spengler was prescient in many ways and even when wrong his assertions pointed fertile thought-scapes. Hence, we pursued the effort of scaling Spengler – something that was probably just a little less operose than the effort of that German to understand parts of the taittirIya brAhmaNa describing a ritual to which he had no deeper connection. At the end we were not entirely sure of what to make of Spengler but we could sense why he was influential in the West.

Spengler made some peculiar statements; one right in the introduction to his tome that caught our eye (We are revisiting this due to a subliminal signal from a tweet on Twitter):

“Amongst the Western peoples, it was the Germans who discovered the mechanical clock, the dread symbol of the flow of time, and the chimes of countless clock towers that echo day and night over West Europe are perhaps the most wonderful expression of which a historical world-feeling is capable. In the timeless countrysides and cities of the Classical world, we find nothing of the sort. Till the epoch of Pericles, the time of day was estimated merely by the length of shadow, and it was only from that of Aristotle that the word hora received the (Babylonian) significance of “hour”; prior to that there was no exact subdivision of the day. In Babylon and Egypt water-clocks and sun-dials were discovered in the very early stages, yet in Athens it was left to Plato to introduce a practically useful form of clepsydra, and this was merely a minor adjunct of everyday utility which could not have influenced the Classical life-feeling in the smallest degree. It remains still to mention the corresponding difference, which is very deep and has never yet been properly appreciated, between Classical and modern mathematics. The former conceived of things as they are, as magnitudes, timeless and purely present, and so it proceeded to Euclidean geometry and mathematical statics, rounding off its intellectual system with the theory of conic sections. We conceive things as they become and behave, as function, and this brought us to dynamics, analytical geometry and thence to the Differential Calculus. The modern theory of functions is the imposing marshaling of this whole mass of thought. It is a bizarre, but nevertheless psychologically exact, fact that the physics of the Greeks — being statics and not dynamics — neither knew the use nor felt the absence of the time-element, whereas we on the other hand work in thousandths of a second. The one and only evolution-idea that is timeless, ahistoric, is Aristotle’s entelechy. This, then, is our task. We men of the Western Culture are, with our historical sense, an exception and not a rule. World-history is our world picture and not all mankind’s. Indian and Classical man formed no image of a world in progress, and perhaps when in due course the civilization of the West is extinguished, there will never again be a Culture and a human type in which “world-history” is so potent a form of the waking consciousness.”

This assertion by Spengler arrested us at many in levels. As the German had said, even though it was clearly wrong, it did cast a stone in our mental pools setting of trains of thought waves. First, Spengler, unlike many other westerner thinkers closer to our time, did acknowledge the similarities between the Greco-Roman classical and Indian (i.e. Hindu) civilization in opposition to the “modern” western civilization in the Euro-American world with a Germanic epicenter. However, beyond this, he does not have much knowledge nor does he dwell much upon the Hindu civilization. As a result many of his sweeping generalizations are plain wrong or incomplete but still warrant further consideration and evaluation. After all even as a youth we had heard the famous western accusation: “Indian lack a sense of history”. Many years later when we were blithely whiling away our time on internet fora we heard the occasionally insightful malla rAjIva turn this around and make it a virtue: He declared that unlike the Abrahamists we are not “history-centric”. Hence, apparently we are not caught up with the linear thinking and need to adhere to a single messiah or rasool as the pretAcharin-s and marUnmatta-s respectively do. And then, while seeking to enjoy strI-bhoga we instead found ourselves entangled in the notorious debate on the meaning of AnAditvaM of the shruti. Our interlocutor in addition to keeping us away from the yonirati declared that the thought process of the mumukShu Hindu was really time independent because the brahman was eternal and unchanging – time apparently truly belonged in the realm of avidyA which had to be discarded much as a worn out vesture. There was also that outrageous shrIlankan scientist, whom we heard in our youth, who declared that the Indian concept of time did not need one to care much for history because it was anyhow going to happen again – whether one being born or on large scale the whole yuga cycle. Hearing all of this we wondered after all if Spengler was right and there was not much place for temporal dynamics leave alone “world history” in our thought. Perhaps our own interest in such things was merely a grafted fancy, a western influence, much as horoscopic astrology in the past and cricket in our times.

But clearly this was not the case – after all the first, very contemporary-looking, world history to our knowledge was the brainchild of the Mongols which was financed and executed by a multi-ethnic group of scholars employed by them. At that point in time none in the European world even a had smidgen of idea to create such a history. This we see as a natural outgrowth of ideas such as the “histories” of self and neighboring clans which were seen among various Eurasian peoples, including formulations like the dynasties of the pa~nchajanAH and ikShvAku-s among the Arya-s.

But going right to the bottom of it, i.e., the idea of time itself things are rather different from Spengler or our own compatriots think it to be.

Continued…

In the nocturnal ritual of the soma rite 27th and 28th sAmavedic stuti-s are described below. These songs are sung sometime between 12.30-1.00 AM. The sAmavedic mantra-s have the following musical pattern with respect to the three sAmavedin ritualists:
The prastAva is sung by the prastotA, the udgItha by the udgAtA, the pratihAra by the pratihartA, the upadrava by the udgAtA, and the nidhana by all three.

prastAva: yoge-yoge tavA hA vu stArAM |
udgIthA: O jevAje havAmAhA e hU vA au ho vA |
pratihAra: sAkhAya indraM UtAyA e hU vA au ho vA |
upadrava: O khAya yA hU vA au ho vA |
nidhana: dram Utaye ||

prastAva: A ghA gamad yadI hA vu shrAvAt |
udgIthA: O hasriNIbhir UtA yi bhA e hU vA au ho vA |
pratihAra: vAjebhir Upa no hAvAm hU vA au ho vA |
upadrava: O jebhir A hU vA au ho vA |
nidhana: pa no havAM ||

prastAva: anu pratnasyau hA vu kasaH |
udgIthA: O ve tUvIpratA yin nArAM hU vA au ho vA |
pratihAra: yAn te pUrvaM pitA hUvA e hU vA au ho vA |
upadrava: On te pUrvaM hU vA au ho vA |
nidhana: pitA hUve ||

The lyrics are based on the following mantra-s of the shunaHshepa the son of the fallen bhArgava ajigarta composed after he was adopted by vishvAmitra:
yoge-yoge tavastaraM | vAje-vAje havAmahe | sakhAya indram Utaye ||
In every junction of life, in every booty-winning contest, like [calling] friends we call the mightiest indra for aid.

A ghA gamad yadi shravat | sahasriNIbhir UtibhiH | vAjebhir upa no havam ||
If he shall hear our call, he shall come to our call with a 1000 aids, conquering booty.

anu pratnasyaukasaH | huve tuvipratiM naram | yaM te pUrvam pitA huve ||
I invoke the irresistible warrior of the primal fortress, you whom father [vishvAmitra] had formerly invoked.

prastAva: indra suteShu someShu |
udgIthA: O tUM punAyiSha ukthiyAM vide vArddhAsya dakShasya |
pratihAra: mahaM hAyi ShaH |
upadrava: O ham hi ShaH |
nidhana: O yi DA ||

prastAva: sa prathame viyOmAnI |
udgIthA: O vAnAM sAdane vR^idhAs supArAs sUshravas-tamaH |
pratihAra: samapsUjIt |
upadrava: O mapsujA yit |
nidhana: O yi DA ||

prastAva: tamu hUve vAjasAtAyA yi |
udgIthA: OndrAM bhArAya shuShmINAM bhavA nAs sUmne antamaH |
pratihAra: sakhA vArddhA yi |
upadrava: O khA vR^idhA yi |
nidhana: O yi DA ||

The lyrics are based on the following mantra-s of the great vipra nArada of the clan of the kANva-s

indraH suteShu someShu kratum punIta ukthyam |
vide vR^idhasya dakShaso mahAn hi ShaH ||
indra, at the soma libations, makes himself clear to receive the chants; he is known to be of high skill because he is the great one!

sa prathame vyomani devAnAM sadane vR^idhaH |
supAraH sushravastamaH sam apsujit ||
He became mighty in the primal sky, the seat of the deva-s, all-transcending, of great fame, conquering all waters.

tam ahve vAjasAtaya indram bharAya shuShmiNam |
bhavA naH sumne antamaH sakhA vR^idhe ||
Him I call for the conquest of booty, for the battle [I call] the impetuous indra; be close to us in favorable disposition, a friend for our augmentation.

Note that in the first of the above songs the upadrava incorporates a modified version of the first pada of the pratihAra. In the second song the upadrava repeats of the whole pratihAra pada in a modified form. All these sAman-s are followed by the recitation of shastra-s by the brAhmaNAchChaMsin, which include the above R^ik-s and several other R^iks with the terminal triplications and the interspersion of the shOMsAvOM incantation. At the end of each shastra that follows the song a soma libation is made with the below mantra-s which begin with the syllable ‘pro’. After the first of the above songs and the associated shastra:
pro droNe harayaH karmAgman punAnAsa R^ijyanto abhUvan |
indro no asya pUrvyaH papIyAd dyukSho madasya somyasya rAjA ||
Forth to the droNa-kalasha the tawny stream flows for the ritual, and purified flows straight ahead. May indra, heavenly  king, as in the past, drink of this exhilarating soma.

After the second:
progrAm pItiM vR^iShNa iyarmi satyAm prayai sutasya haryashva tubhyam |
indra dhenAbhir iha mAdayasva dhIbhir vishvAbhiH shachyA gR^iNAnaH ||
To make you start [for our ritual], I offer you a strong, true libation, the manly one,  whom the tawny horses carry to the [soma] pressing. Here, O indra, be delighted in our milk-effused soma offerings, as we offer recitations skillfully crafted with all our intelligence.
With this concludes the offerings to indra.

This is followed by the making of the special seat with bricks and cushions for the hotA to the west of his fire altar. Then the sAmavedin ritualists sing the 9-fold rahasya gANa to agni, uSha-s and the ashvinau. This followed by the recitation of 1000 mantra-s to the ashvin-s with the Ashvina offering ordained by our ancient ancestor chyavAna.

The above object is a gnarled piece of driftwood. Only that it never floated in the sea and exists only in the virtual realm – a pure mathematical abstraction – a combination of three functions. Some would say it is an ultimate vindication of Platonism or the entities of shuddha-bhuvanAdhvan. In any case it raises the issue of whether natural form suggests that mathematical entities are merely discovered, i.e., a connection with that Platonic shuddha-shR^iShTi, or are invented for describing nature, or is merely a reflection of a deep-rooted tendency for pareidolia.

The jaina AchArya haribhadra sUri collected a series of old tales and presented them in a didactic form for emphasizing jaina principles in the novel known as the samarAichcha kahA. It was written in a vulgar prAkR^ita which was most likely spoken in the north of the mahArAShTrI domain as it is tinged with shaurasenI. The tales themselves might have had an independent existence (much like the bR^ihatkathA) either in earlier novels written with a non-didactic intent or as popular narratives peculiar to certain communities. The sixth cycle of the SK contains a story that appears to have been a vaNija tradition and throws light on the ways of the India vaNija-s from the second half of the first millennium of the common era. We retell this tale here:

dharaNa was the son of a sea-faring merchant in the town of mAyandI who sailed down the ga~NgA and into the sea. He had a wife named lachChI. One day he was entering the town gate on his chariot when he found himself opposite to devanandin, the son of another rich merchant. Filled with pride devanandin said he had the right of way because he was richer. But dharaNa claimed it was him and two refused to give way to the other blocking the traffic at the town gate. For this they were summoned by the town authorities who severely rebuked them for holding up the traffic merely on account of their ancestral wealth despite being good-for-nothing themselves. While devanandin laughed it off dharaNa was ashamed. He proposed that they should take the same capital investment and make money by themselves over the next year and who ever had made greater profit should be given primacy. They agreed to this and signed a document to the effect, which they kept at the town office of records.

dharaNa started off in the direction of the Punjab taking his wife lachChI with him. On the way he saw a mantravAdin hemakuNDala who was stuck up with a mantra in which he had forgotten a word. dharaNa helped him recover that word and in return hemakuNDala gave him a medicinal plant that healed wounds. As he proceeded in a forest he came across kAlaseNa, a shabhara chieftain, who had been wounded by a lion. dharaNa healed him with his herb. Then dharaNa saved moriya, a chaNDAla, from being wrongly executed. Finally, he settled in Ayala-Ura in the Punjab and made a large profit in trade of commodities. On this return journey he was attacked by shabara-s but he managed to escape with lachChI. In course of this they were direly short on food but he feed her his own flesh to keep her alive. They finally reached a small town where lachChI eloped with a thief and left some stolen goods beside dharaNa who was sleeping. He was soon arrested and sentenced to death, a task assigned to moriya the chaNDala. But moriya remembering his good turn let him go. The thief in the meantime fearing the murderous nature of lachChI had left her. dharaNa found her and took her again not knowing of her nature. In the meantime kAlaseNa realized that he had plundered his ex-benefactor’s caravan and sets off to find dharaNa. dharaNa had by then been captured by the shabara-s to be sacrificed to caNDikA, but kAlaseNa releases him and restores his goods. dharaNa in turn advises the shabara-s to stop killing people. Back in his home town he wins the contest, but no longer wishes to participate in the contest for primacy. Instead he seeks to continue his business and make more wealth.

dharaNa traveled with lachChI to vejayantI on the east coast and took a ship to go to do business in chIna. As he was near Indonesia his ship was wrecked in a storm but he somehow managed to reach Sumatra on a raft. There he discovered a gold deposit and extracted gold from it made several hollow gold biscuits with his name stamped inside them. He then put up a “rescue me” flag and waited. A merchant suvadaNa, who traded in chIna, bound to deva-Ura in bhArata , was passing that way and offered to take him. He found on the ship that lachChI had already been rescued by suvadaNa from a nearby island and on board. As they were making their way back to bhArata, the yakShinI hiraNyakA demanded that they either give her a human victim or return her gold they had taken from Sumatra. At this point dharaNa offered to be the victim and was dragged into the sea by the yakShinI. His evil wife was delighted and asked suvadaNa to take her to back to bhArata with the gold. But to the luck of dharaNa, he was sighted by the mantravAdin hemakuNDala who was proceeding to the island of Bali. hemakuNDala pulled him out of the ocean and takes him to a mountainous region in Bali where they find several gems. Having collected these gems they fly back to deva-Ura by means of hemakuNDala’s magic. There dharaNa stayed with the merchant Toppa and went out to meet the ship of suvadaNa when it arrived at the port. By then lachChI had taken suvadaNa as her mate.

Seeing dharaNa, they concealed their relationship and instead arranged for a great feast for their reunion. In course of the banquet on the beach dharaNa was thoroughly drunk and passed out when lachChI strangled him and left him there. However, the next day when Toppa’s attendants were sent to find him they managed to get him and revive him. Finally, he became aware of lachChI’s true nature and urged by Toppa went to reclaim his gold biscuits. He goes to court when lachChI and suvadaNa claimed to have never known him. In the court the kShatriya ordered a goldsmith to open the hollow biscuits and found dharaNa’s name stamped within it. Thus, he was granted his gold, while lachChI was sentenced to banishment and suvadaNa was sentenced to death for larceny. However, dharaNa asks that suvadaNa be spared. He shares part of his wealth with Toppa and even suvadaNa as payment for having ferried his gold back to bhArata. Finally dharaNa returned home with the rest of his enormous wealth. However, he kept thinking of his wife’s betrayal and pricked by it decided to renounce the world and become a shramaNa.

While wandering as a shramaNa in tAmalitti, dharaNa was sighted by lachChI who hatched a plot to frame him as a thief. He was sentenced to death by impalement on a shUla. But the shUla sunk to the ground. The kShatriya took this as a sign that dharaNa might be innocent and initiated a new investigation. He found that lachChI was missing and had been living with suvadaNa. So he arrested suvadaNa who finally confessed the whole plot. But lachChI who had escaped to the forest was eaten by a lion and proceeded to naraka. Eventually dharaNa committed suicide and attained the deva realm.

Holding a trident he arrived at the great smashANa at the foot of kollagiri from the subterranean temple of nR^isiMha where he had practiced the mantra of the adhomukha. It was in the midst of a storm: the trees in the cemetery shook as though they had been struck by the fist of the great ape vAlin. The shadows of their moving branches made the spectacle look like the dance of the great karAlA holding severed heads and diverse weapons in her hands. The clatter of the rain and the occasional hail was like the drumming of the gaNa-s during the tANDava of sharva. As each strike of lighting was followed by the great roar of parjanya he uttered the vaShaT call. He proceeded to the shrine housing the kShetrapAla upon which the great karAlA, also known as chaNDAkhyA, looked upon. Seated at his chosen corner he silently witness a corpse being consumed by the fierce kravyAda, with hissing and crackling noises even as the long bones and skull exploded in the fury of yamavaha. In his mind he was intoning the ancient bahurUpI mantra of the southern face even as he turned the beads of his rudrAkSha rosary. Some time after the anti-meridian hour the sky cleared completely revealing the silver soma cup of the heaven. There was a rustling noise and shadows indicated a new presence. The silence of the night was interrupted by some voices. He heard the familiar voice of an Apastambin ritualist who was negotiating with the cemetery guard for a fresh human head to place beneath the chiti for his impending agnichayana. As the guard was thus distracted in his duties, someone else slipped into to the smashANa. He could tell that this was someone very different from the dancing shadow and the enlivening scents of a female unguents though she hid herself behind a karNamoTa tree. Raising his arm he showed the Chomma of the bull-horns. She responded with the Chomma of the lion-claw, which he picked up via the shadow cast in the shrine’s courtyard. He then displayed the Chomma of the ghost. She responded with that of the of the great reptile. He then showed the Chomma of eagle and she that of the many-formed rudra. Finally they both simultaneous displayed that of the “conjunct-churner”. She then came out into the open: He was shocked as though he had come face to face to chAmuNDA herself, even as the breeze blew her flowing locks in all direction revealing a skull in place of the face. She laughed and raised her mask revealing her beautiful face beneath.

He called out: “O susmeratA come forth we have been waiting for you hoping to attain siddhi. Why did you come thus masked ?”
susmeratA: “Wandering from the draviDadesha we arrived here and felt that the the cemetery guard might block out way. Hence, we planned to get in by either behaving like an unmatta-strI or frightening him with that mask of ours. But to our luck we ran into an old acquaintance, the Apastambin named mAra somayAjin, who in the path of the secret shaiva shAstra was a student of our own teacher vijayA~NkA from the karNATa country who conquers like sarasvatI.”
He said: “Indeed, you need to conceal yourself. What would people think and say if they saw a respectable brAhmaNa girl, the daughter of a great vaiyAkaraNa uddyotana, wandering thus in the midst of taverns and cemeteries, when she should be tending the fire at her hearth. O conduit of siddhi, we seek the 11-fold kaula path and its foundation of bhairava-s.”
susmeratA: “O vIra first reveal your former course in full.”
He said: “We come from anahilapattana and are among the few who attained complete siddhi of the practice of the kArttikeya mantra-s that hardly anyone achieves. We then proceeded to study the oceanic shAstra of the yoginI-s in the realms of kashmIra. There we dreamt that we should proceed from towards the south and that you would come from the draviDa country to take us on the path of attaining the state of a vidyAdhara. O susumeratA, mistress of the saMmelana, we seek the yoga of klinnAnvaya.”
susmeratA: “We shall first embark on the 8-fold path which form the base of the great throne of klinnA.”

There after she began revealing him the 8-fold mantra paths of: niShkala-svachChanda, sakala-svachChanda, bahurUpa-bhairava, aghorIsha, the vyAdhibhakSha-bhairava, chandragarbha-bhairava, vij˜nAnabhairava, tumburu, and amR^iteshavara. For an year he practiced the mantra-s devoted to constant purashcaraNa and the offering of agni-kriyA-s on the specified days. There after susmeratA summoned him one darsha night and said the test for your mantra attainment is will be via a mantra contest. He on the path of the vidyAdhara should not be afraid of one. She took out her rAvaNahasta and played the following song:

“Bent on delighting in siddha-bhoga
the vidyAdhara-s pour surabhi’s ghR^ita
into the fire of the great klinnA’s trikoNa.

In the space known as the kha-vyoman,
though the space is within vyoma-vyApin,
the vidyAdhara worships the wild vyoma-loman.

I am the one in the midst of the yoginI-jAla,
exhibiting the high magic of the shambara,
the sole sun blazing in the mayUkha-chakra.

I dance along with wild band of hR^illekhA and kledinI,
with nandA, madanAturA and the restive kShobhanI,
then with the glorious nira~njanA and rAgavatI

With khekalA and the bewitching madanAvatI,
ecstatically with drAvinI, speedily with vegavatI,
I am the great rudra of the churning!”

He felt an uncontrollable force tearing him apart. He felt lifted of the ground and hurled as though he was shambara being hurled by maghavan from atop his mountain fort. Coursing in the sky he flew like a vidyAdhara passing over the many hued lands of the triangle of southern jambudvIpa, occasionally bypassing a vulture and other times a flock of waterfowl. Finally, he landed in an unfamiliar port town. He saw some sights he had seen in the port near his own home town of anahilapattana but this was an entirely different place. It seemed to be in the chera country. Some vaNjia-s were offloading merchandize from Africa whereas others were loading commodities to set out to Egypt or Iran. He wondered how he would make his way here and why he had landed there in the first place.

-An excerpt from “mantra-nAyaka”

In the great pravargya ritual the mAhAvIra pot containing the milk of a cow and a goat, i.e. the gharma offering, is intensely heated until it starts glowing. When the pot starts glowing the hotar looks at it starts reciting the sUkta RV 10.177 (In some traditions in south India they only recite RV 10.177.1 & 3). This sUkta is traditionally referred to as the mAyAbheda sUkta. Regarding this the sUkta the shaunakIya R^igvidhAna redacted by the early vaiShNava viShNukumAra states:

pata~Ngam iti nityam tu japed aj~nAna bhedanam |
mAyA bhedanam etaddhi sarva mAyAH prabAdhate ||

He should constantly do japa of the [mantra-s beginning with] pata~Nga that destroys ignorance. It is breaks the [spell of] mAyA and drives away all mAyA.

shAmbarIm indrajAlAm vA mAyAm etena vArayet |
adR^iShTAnAm cha sattvAnAm mAyAm etena bAdhate || RVdh 4.115-116

By this he should block mAyA be it of the shambara or the indrajAla variety; By this he repulses the mAyA of the unseen ones and of the consciousness.

This prayoga is interesting because it uses the term shAmbarI in the sense of a magical prayoga, which is closer to its use in the sense we encounter it in the temporally later tantra texts. But of course the mAyA of shambara has a very old precedence, primarily in a negative sense, in the R^igveda itself:

tvaM divo bR^ihataH sAnu kopayo .ava tmanA dhR^iShatA shambaram bhinat |
yan mAyino vrandino mandinA dhR^iShach ChitAM gabhastim ashanim pR^itanyasi || RV 1.54.4
You shook the pinnacle of the high heavens; with your own valor you rent apart shambara,
when exhilarated with the flowing soma juice you battled with the sharp, radiating thunderbolt those wielding mAyA.

This might be compared to the mAyA of other dAnava-s and dasyu-s like vR^itra:

indro mahAM sindhum AshayAnam mAyAvinaM vR^itram asphuran niH |
arejetAM rodasI bhiyAne kanikradato vR^iShNo asya vajrAt ||
indra threw down vR^itra who sprawled across the great sindhu: both the celestial hemispheres trembled in terror of the manly warrior’s vajra when he roared.

On the other hand the mAyA of indra and other deities is clearly praised in the R^igveda:

maho mahAni panayanty asyendrasya karma sukR^itA purUNi |
vR^ijanena vR^ijinAn sam pipeSha mAyAbhir dasyUMr abhibhUty ojAH ||
[The ritualists] express wonder at the great deeds of this great one, the numerous glorious acts of indra; Through his might the surpassed the mighty, of unsurpassed might, with his mAyA powers he pounded the dasyus.

This mAyA of indra is likely to have been the precursor of the term indrajAla. However, in the vidhAna the sUkta is being deployed against both the shAmbarI and indrajAla suggesting that there was some semantic shift in the term mAyA — or at least a possible negative connotation for both the daivi, i.e. indrajAla, and dAnavI mAyA.

While witnessing the pravargya from the sadas over two decade ago, a local brAhmaNa remarked that the meaning of the mAyAbheda was to dispel mAyA in the sense of advaita vedAnta. This is an even further semantic shift. Indeed, the memory of both shAMbarI and indrajAla in negative sense survives in later Hindu tradition in the yoga vAsiShTha of the Kashmirian advaitin smArta-s. Here in a very typically advaitic manner the world is portrayed as an illusory indrajAla.

vasiShTha tell rAma:
atra te shR^iNu vakShyAmi vR^ittAntaM imam uttamaM |
jAgatI hendrajAla shrIsh chittAyattA yathA sthitA || mumukShu-vyavahAra prakaraNaM 104.1

Now you hear me narrate this excellent story which shows the world to be like an indrajAla, i.e, illusory wonder resting on the consciousness.

The story might be retold thus:
In the lands of the uttarapANDava-s ruled lavaNa the descendent of harishchandra. He was a brave warrior and a good administrator well assisted by meritorious officers. Once to his court arrived an indrajAla magician. With his sweet talk he convinced the rAjan that he would display a form of indrajAla known as the kharolikA. He twirled his magic wand with peacock feathers and began to manifest many wonders even as the paramAtman creates numerous forms by mAyA. It emitted variegated particles even as the rainbow of indra. Immediately a chieftain from the saindhava country became manifest by magic followed by an extremely fast horse, which he said was like the uchchaiHshravas of indra. He told lavaNa that he was bringing the horse as a gift from the rAjan of sindhudesha. The magician told the king that it befitted a great rAjan like him to ride that horse. According the king mounted the illusory horse and went into a hypnotic spell for two muhUrta-s during which he witnessed numerous hallucinations. He saw himself entering the realm of chaNDALas in forests of the vindhya-s and married a chaNDAlI. Then he lives with her family and begets children via her. As he is living as a chaNDAla, their land is afflicted by drought and famine. Afflicted by hunger they start wandering. Finally he sees his younger son sorely afflicted by hunger and he offers his own flesh as his food. At this point he was about to kill himself when he break out from the hypnosis.

When his courtiers finally resurrected him from his hypnotic stupor, he, interestingly describes these hallucinations simultaneously as both shAmbari and indrajAla:
idam Ashcharyam AkhyAnaM shrUytAM re sabhAsadaH |
mama shAmbarikeNeha yan muhUrtaM pradarshitam || mumukShu-vyavahAra prakaraNaM 105.25

The gloss of bodhendra states: shambarasya mAyA shAMbarI sA .asyA .asti iti shAMbarIkas tena |
Thus the hypnosis which the king was placed under is understood as the mAyA (magic) of shambara. Thus we have: Arrey courtiers! Hear this astonishing account of the hallucinations I witnessed under the shambara spell in course of the muhUrta.

dR^ishTavAn aham etasmin bahvIH kArya-dashAsh-chalAH |
muhUrtaM prArthito .adhvasta shakra-sR^iShTir iva abjajaH || mumukShu-vyavahAra prakaraNaM 105.26

I have seen under this spell numerous passing scenes of existences even as the lotus-born brahmA was assailed for a muhUrta by the illusions of indra’s creation that he had destroyed.

bodhendra, explains the illusion of indra’s creation in his gloss thus by providing an old narrative concerning the battle between the daitya bali and indra:

adhvasta shakra-sR^iShTir iti chChedhaH | purA kila baliH kvachid asahAyaM shakram AsAdya baler nigR^ihyAhartu-kAmaH shakreNa mAyayA sva-sainyaM sR^iShTvA baliM mAyAbandhena mohayAmAsa | tadA balinA sva-bandhana-mokShaNAya stutyA prasAdito brahmA tatra Agatya shAkrIM sR^iShTiM dhvaMsayituM pravR^ittaH shakra-prArthanayA adhvasta-shakra-sR^iShTir muhUrta-mAtraM tan mAyA-kautukaM yathA dR^iShTavAMs tadvad ity arthaH ||

The demon bali had succeeded in making indra somewhat ineffective against him. With the intention of defeating bali’s coercion indra used his mAyA to generate a magical army and entrapped balir in the bonds of his mAyA. Then bali to free himself from this bondage of indra’s magic praised brahmA, who pleased by his praise arrived there at battle field and proceeded to destroy indra’s magical creation. However, at indra’s request, brahmA had seen the wonders indra’s creation via his mAyA power for a muhUrta.

This tale gives a hint regarding the development of a negative connotation for indrajAla. This tale clearly belongs to the tradition of the primacy of prajApati that began in the late Vedic period. The rise of prajApati to primacy within the shrauta system happened at the expense of indra and this clearly indicated in this tale. Moreover, the designation of prajApati as an originator deity was also clearly in competition with indra’s role in generating or structuring the universe. Thus, the tale has indra’s own creation as being transient and destroyed by prajApati (brahmA). We know that this prAjApatya tradition with brahmA at the forefront was a major force in the period the composition of the rAmAyaNa and the mahAbhArata (in both texts the sub-current tension with the aindra-para tradition is seen). It was the same tradition that was a big force among the vaidika brAhmaNa-s in the days of the tathAgata and was vehemently attacked by him. The tradition eventually succumbed to the competition from within in the form of the shaiva, vaiShNava, kaumAra traditions and attacks from without from the bauddha-s. But we hear from the AchArya abhinavagupta in the tantrAloka that there were prAjApatya-s still around in his days (~1000 years ago) in kashmIra country. Hence, it is not surprising that an account aligned with their worldview is found in the yoga-vAsiShTha. In terms of relative chronology based on the language and content we can place the composition of the R^igvidhAna right in the core of the prAjApatya period. Hence, it is quite possible that ideas such as those expressed in the above tale of indra-sR^iShTi contributed to the emergence of a negative connotation for indrajAla alongside shAmbari in this text. However, in the shaiva tAntrika tradition these still retained a positive sense as in the celebrated yoginI-jAla-shambara [Footnote 1].

The yoga-vAsiShTha also has a tale regarding shambara’s magic that appears to be a a version of the legend alluded to in the R^igveda where indra is said to have destroyed the mAyAvin’s of the shambara. However, as described above the tale has clearly been reworked by the prAjApatya-s to assert the primacy of brahmA. Indeed, the yogavAsiShTha takes a rather pro-daitya stance in certain places and even praises the daitya shambara renowned for his magic as an exemplar of advaitic renunciation with a difficult understand word play:
shambaraika paro .apy antaH shambaraika tayoditaH |
saMsAra shambaraM rAma shambaras tyaktavAn idam ||

bodhendra states: shambaraM mAyA tad eka paro .apyantaH shambaraM hArda-chid-AkAshas tad ekatayA udita AvirbhUtaH || upashama-prakaraNaM 75.9

Thus: shambara is the foremost mAyAvin, but his internal “heart space” is clear as water, (shambara) within which emerges the unity. Hence, O rAma, shambara had renounced the “shambara” (i.e. the mAyA) of saMsAra (a very advaitic teaching!).

The tale of shambara narrated in the sthiti-prakaraNaM 25 onwards goes thus:
In the depths of pAtAla lived the foremost lord of the daitya-s name shambara. This demon was a great mAyAvin and created a magic world. He terrorized the deva-s in svarga with his machine known as the tarku-yantra and a magical elephant. In retaliation when he was away from his city or sleeping, the deva-s attacked his realm and massacred his daitya army. The furious shambara invaded svarga and set off a long war. The deva-s fearing his powers left their abodes and continued fighting and killing all the forces he dispatched against them. Thus discomfited, he created three daitya-s known as dAma, vyAla and kaTa to lead his forces. They were in reality zombies or robots who lacked any kind of mental preconditioning – thus they were free from fear or doubt.Being robotic zombies they lacked the sense of ‘I’; hence, they were not afflicted by the possibility of “I will be harmed”.

Commanded by shambara they rose out of the ocean and with their gigantic forms obscured the sun and absorbed all its light. The deva army of indra issued forth from caverns and the forests of the towering mountain meru like a great deluge and an awe-inspiring deva-dAnava encounter with the use of numerous celestial missiles. These are described at length in the account of the great encounter between indra’s forces and those of shambara. For example:

bhuShuNDI-maNDalA-sphoTa sphuTan meru shiraH shatam |
shara-mAruta nirlUna daitya-deva-mukhAmbujam || sthiti-prakaraNa 26.28

The explosions of arrays of bhuShuNDI-s [fired by the daitya-s] burst the hundred peaks of meru; the wind of missiles pierced the lotus faces of the daitya and deva-s.

hety ugra vAta niShpiShTa patad vAimAnika-vrajam |
astroditAbdhi vAryogha plAvita vyoma-pattanaM || sthiti-prakaraNa 26.28

Blasted by the violent shock-waves of the missiles whole formations of airplanes fell; The flying stations were deluged by floods generated by water hurled by the astras.

astra-nirmita-durvAra-tamaH kalpAnta-rAtrikam |
mAyA sUrya-gaNodyotaiH pItAtanutamaH paTaM || sthiti-prakaraNa 26.42

With foul clouds generated by their astra-s [the daitya-s] created darkness like the end of the kalpa; [The deva-s] using a cluster of mAyA suns lit up the darkness.

There is also an interesting shloka that has been interpreted in two ways:

evaM shabda-shaton-nAda-pAtAla-tala-vAraNaM |
vinAyaka-karAkR^iShTa-dIrgha-dAnava-parvataM ||sthiti-prakaraNa 26.56

Thus, [in counter to the cries of the] mountain-like dAnava-s seized by the kara (talons) of vi-nAyaka (= lord of the birds, garuDa) | seized by the kara (trunk) of vinAyaka, the elephants of the netherworld trumpeted a hundred times.

Thus, even after a prolonged fight the deva-s were unable to overcome dAma, vyAla and kaTa and retreated to brahmA. Then brahmA explained that their lack of I-ness allows them to be unlimited. He asked indra to foster a sense of egoistic avarice in them. Then they would lose their zombie-like nature conscious of their desires. Then the deva-s rested and refreshed themselves and challenged the daitya-s to war. The daitya-s immediately retaliated again with a remarkable array of celestial weapons, e.g.:

madhya-pravAhavahad-ulmuka-shUla-shaila-
prAsa asi-kunta-shara-tomara-mudgareNa |
ga~Ngopama ambu-valita amara-mandireNa
sarvAsu dikShv ashani varSha nikarShaNena || sthiti-prakaraNa 28.8

The deva strongholds were assailed by a deluge of meteor-like missiles, tridents, rocks, lances, swords, sharp spikes, arrows, poled-cleavers, and hammers, they were flooded by gushing water like that of the ga~NgA, and blazing lightning weapons from all directions.

garuDa-guDa-guDAkulAntarikSha-
pravisR^ita-heti-hutAsha-parvataughaiH |
jagad abhavad asahya kalpa-kAla-
jvalita-surAlaya-bhUtala antarAlam || sthiti-prakaraNa 28.15

[The deva-s] with clusters of garuDa bombs and daityas with shells; the streams of fire and rocks from launched missiles made it unbearable as the world at the end of the kalpa, even as deva strongholds burnt and fell to the earth.

Thus, undaunted the deva-s led by indra and the daitya-s by dAma, vyAla and kaTa fought on and the war raged for 35 years. Then after a break they fought on 5 years 8 month and 10 days. Fighting ceaseless over this prolonged period the robotic daitya-s felt a sense of “I” developing. This lead to the desire for complete victory over the deva-s but it also caused a sense doubt that they could be killed by the deva-s. Once this happened the deva-s got better of them and smashed the daitya-s slaughtering their army in a great battle on the slopes of mount meru. Their corpses are said to have showered all over jambudvIpa.

With his mAyA thus broken, shambara called out to his three mAyAvin-s in despair but the three robotic daitya-s now endowed with Atman-s fled to naraka where they were married to ladies of the naraka realm. Once they showed disrespect to yama when he was touring the realms of naraka and furious he dispatched them to a great blazing cauldron where they were torture and died. Then they were reborn as kirAta tribesmen. After that they were born as crows, then as vultures, then as boars in the trigarta country, then as red gorals in the hills of magadha, then as snakes. Then they reincarnated as a zebrafish and other types of fishes in kAshmIra. After many births as fishes they were crushed to death under the hoof of a buffalo which was wallowing in a Kashmirian lake. Then they were born as cranes. Finally, vyAla was born as sparrow, dAma as a mosquito and kaTa as a parrot. This happened when the great king yashaskara was ruling kAshmIra. They happened to hear his minister narasiMha recite the narrative of the great war of the deva-s and the daitya-s. When they heard this narrative they “awoke” in the eternality of Atman and attained mokSha.

Even so at the somayAga as the great flames leapt from the mahAvIra pot when the goat and cow’s milk were added to the superheated ghee, we awoke from the advaitin’s discourse and started wondering about the real meaning of the original mAyAbheda sUkta deployed in the pravargya and it dawned on us that it was close to the ritual in which it was used.

mAyAbheda sUktam (RV 10.177):

pata~Ngam aktam asurasya mAyayA hR^idA pashyanti manasA vipashchitaH |
samudre antaH kavayo vi chakShate marIchInAm padam ichChanti vedhasaH ||

vipaShchitaH = seers, plural subject; manasA= by their mind, instrumental; hR^idA= by heart, instrumental of hR^id; pata~Ngam= bird, singular object; aktam= anointed; asurasya=asura’s, genitive singular; mAyayA= by mAyA; singular instrumental; pashyanti= see, 3rd person plural present, parasmai.

samudre= in ocean, locative; antaH= inside; kavayaH= kavi-s, vocative plural; vi chakShate= 3rd person singular present, atmane; marIchInAm= rays, genitive plural; padam= station, accusative singular; vedhasaH= ritualists; plural subject; ichChanti= 3rd person plural present, parasmai.

Here the terms vipashchit, vedhas and kavi all refer to the ritualist-mantra composer-sages who are participating in the rite.

The seers see with their minds and with their heart the bird anointed with the mAyA of the asura; O kavi-s, from within the ocean he shines forth, the ritualists seek the station of [his] rays.

Here the pata~Nga, by vaidika metaphor, is the sun and he is “anointed” with rays by the mAyA of the asura who is none other than the deva savitA (Indeed hiraNyastUpa A~Ngirasa praises savitA thus: vi suparNo antarikShANy akhyad gabhIravepA asuraH sunIthaH | RV 1.35.7a. The golden eagle, lit up the mid-regions, the one from the wavy depths, the good asura). Even when not visible he shines from within the ocean. The meditating on him the ritualists seek the “station” of his rays, which could figuratively mean the illumination of his rays. This effectively is parallel to the image presented by the famed sAvitrI R^ik of vishvAmitra that used in the saMdhyA ritual, where in the rays of the deva savitA are sought to illuminate the mind of the meditator. This connects to the fact that one of the prime deities of the gharma offering is savitA (the deva-s offered the gharma are: ashvin-s, vAyu, indra, savitA, bR^ihaspati and yama).

……….
pata~Ngo vAcham manasA bibharti tAM gandharvo .avadad garbhe antaH |
tAM dyotamAnAM svaryam manIShAm R^itasya pade kavayo ni pAnti ||

pata~NgaH= singular, subject; vAcham= holy utterance/incantation, object; manasA= singular instrumental; bibharti= bears, 3rd person singular present, parasmai; tAM= that, accusative feminine; gandharvaH=subject; avadat= uttered, 3rd person singular past, parasmai, garbhe= in the womb, locative singular, antaH= inside;

tAM= that, accusative feminine, dyotamAnAM= radiant; svaryam= celestial; manIShAM= mental creation, i.e., incantation, object; R^itasya= of the R^ita, genitive; pade= in the station, locative; kavayaH=kavi-s, nominative plural; ni pAnti= take in [literally drink in], 3rd person plural present, parasmai.

The bird holds the incantation (vAk, the holy utterance) in the mind; the gandharva had uttered within the womb. That radiant, celestial incantation the kavi-s take in at the station of the R^ita (i.e. the universal laws).

Here the bird, i.e., the sun is said to hold the incantation, which is uttered by the gandharva within the womb, which represented by the world hemispheres. But for the ritualist the external sun is also homologized with the “light” of mental enlightenment; hence the synesthetic metaphor of the sun holding it in the mind. This enlightenment leads to the utterance of the mantra-s within, which is expressed by the metaphor of the gandharva [For an explicit statement of this internal homology see below]. The gandharva here is the sun as indicated in other R^igveda mantra-s such as:
Urdhvo gandharvo adhi nAke asthAd vishvA rUpA pratichakShANo asya |
bhAnuH shukreNa shochiShA vy adyaut prArUruchad rodasI mAtarA shuchiH || RV 9.85.12

High to the zenith as the gandharva risen, beholding all these varied forms.
His rays have shone widely with brightness: the pure one has lit both the worlds, the parents.

This gandharva also specifically relates to the gandharva-s invoked at the pravargya after the mahAvIra pot is finally disposed. Here the ritualists as a chorus utter a series of yajuSh incantations which include the formulae:
rantir nAmAsi divyo gandharva | tasya te padvad dhavirdhAnaM | agnir adhyakShA | rudro.adhipatiH ||
you are ranti by name, the celestial gandharva, the havirdhAna is your foot messenger, agni your president, rudra is your overlord !

vishvAvasur abhi tan no gR^iNAtu | divyo gandharvo rajaso vimAnaH | yad vA ghA satyam uta yan na vidma | dhiyo hinvAno dhiya inno avyAd | prAsaM gandharvo amR^itAni vochad | (prAnA vA amR^itAH ||)

vishvAvasu, proclaim it to us, the celestial gandharva who measures out the heavens. Whether we know the truth already or not, he who has impelled our inspired intellect also have these thoughts inspired. The gandharva has proclaimed he immortal one. The prAna-s are immortal.

Thus, the mantra-s of the mAyAbheda sUkta are closely related to the inspiration that is received as result of the rite which is supposed to be proclaimed by the celestial gandharva. The gandharva in Vedic tradition has a mysterious nature and can take possession of individuals during which he can make revelations via the possessed medium. This relates to the earlier R^ik where the sun(bird) is said to be covered by mAyA, thus making it fit to be described as a gandharva. Like the possessing gandharva-s, the solar gandharva-s ranti and vishvAvasu confer knowledge to the ritualists. This is what is alluded to when they are described as drinking the gandharva’s proclamation at the seat of the universal laws. This seat of the R^ita is in essence the ritual arena – the uttaravedi which is homologized with the universe. Indeed the incantation used in the pravargya when he sets down the mahAvIra pot at the conclusion of the ritualist utter the formula:

chatuHsraktir nAbhir R^itasya | (iyam vA R^itam | tasyA eSha eva nAbhiH |)
Quadrangular is the center of R^ita. This [the uttaravedi] is the R^ita; the pravargya is its root.

……….
apashyaM gopAm anipadyamAnam A cha parA cha pathibhish charantam |
sa sadhrIchIH sa viShUchIr vasAna A varIvarti bhuvaneShv antaH ||

apashyaM= saw; 1st person singular past, parasmai; gopAm= guardian, object; anipadyamAnam=never resting; A cha parA cha= northern and southern (eastern and western); pathibhiH= paths, instrumental; charatam= moving;

sa= he; sadhrIchIH= approaching; viShUchIH= departing; vasAnaH= clothes [ or in this context taking on appearances], singular nominative; A varIvarti= revolves, 3rd person singular, parasmai; bhuvaneShu= in worlds, locative plural; antaH= inside.

I saw the never-resting guardian, moving along the northern and southern [eastern and western] paths. He, in his approaching and departing apparitions (or: clothing the sadhrIchI= antarikSha and the viShuchI= dyaus [with his rays]), continually revolves in midst of the worlds.

The taittirIya AraNyaka explains:
apshyaM gopAM ity Aha | prANo vai gopAH | prANam eva prajAsu vi yAtyati | “apashyaM gopAM ity Aha | asau vA adityo gopAH | sa hiimAH prajA gopAyati | tam eva prajAnAM goptAraM kurute ||
“I saw the guardian” so he recites. The guardian is the prANa. [If he meditate thus] he has the prANa flowing into all reproducing life. “I saw the guardian” so he recites. The yonder Aditya is the guardian for he guards all this reproducing life. [If he mediates thus] he makes a protector for all life forms.

This explanation establishes clearly the duality that is implied in these mantra-s i.e. homologizing of the external sun with the internal prANa which is also described as a bird (e.g. the haMsaH). It also holds for the rest of the R^ik: Both the prANa and the sun are seen as never-resting. The paths taken by the sun might be interpreted as the rising and the setting (i.e. eastern and western). But we prefer the explanation of the northern and southern paths because traditionally these are the two paths or ayana-s of the sun. The eastern and western one are part of the same path after all. The prANa is similarly seen as having the inhalation and exhalation as its two paths. The sadhrIchIH and viShUchIH in the case of the sun might be interpreted as the visible apparition during the day with the bright clothing or the invisible one at night with the dark clothing. However, it is has also been connected with water – i.e. the one which draws water away from the earth and the one which supplies waters in the form of the rains. The inward prANa similarly is dry and the outward one is wet. Finally like the sun is seen as revolving within the world, the prANa is seen as constantly revolving within an organism.

……….

This shows that the Hindu tradition of meditative practices connecting the observation of the prANa with the celestial solar movement or penetration by solar light (as seen in the daily saMdhyopAsanA) was also related to the mantra-s in the context of the pravargya ritual. Moreover it also became clear to us that the mAyAbheda sUkta is closely linked to the pravargya rite and was most probably composed precisely for that rite. However, the mAyA and asura in this context are meant in a largely positive sense as that of savitA. The mystery of this mAyA may be seen as being discerned by the ritualists who realize the homologies between the prANa and sUrya. It was only later in the vidhAna tradition that the mAyA acquired a negative connotation. Even latter the advaitin-s interpreted it in the sense they understood mAyA.

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Footnotes

Footnote 1: While the majority of the surviving vaidika tradition tilts in favor of the prAjApatya interpretation, we favor the older aindra interpretation. We hold that the aindra interpretation is more robust and dynamic and consistent with the actual ritual process. We also believe this will be more suitable for the upholding and defense of the dharma via emulation of the impetuous vigor and dasyu-felling mAyA of indra. In this view prajApati remains in the background much like his sAMkhyan abstraction. This aindra-para view of ours is similar to that expressed by arjuna in the bhArata.

He was born in the Gangetic doab in a clan of vaNija-s. He had inherited the skill honed by centuries of selection in business transactions of “cracking the situation”. However, he did not have deep introspective skills or a passion for acquiring knowledge in a wider sense. He passed his way through school and eventually reached college to get what in India is called an ordinary B.Sc. degree in something related to biology. After two more years of listless college life he added yet another degree in the same subject to his name, this time called the M.Sc. At this point he felt like he had hit a dead end – there was nothing more for him to flow into. Vicissitudes of time had washed away the ancestral business of his vaNija family and he had other siblings competing for what remained of it. But then he had already mastered the art of “cracking the situation”. So he decided to find a way out. Those were the heydays of the Nehruvian attempts to uplift national education. In the great rAjadhAnI of indraprastha a new medical institute had arisen – it was supposed to be the leading light of modern medical practice and research in India. The said vaishya now equipped with a degree in the biological science wondered: “That is the place I should go. Let me imbibe the good life of indraprastha and get an even greater degree, the PhD! With that he I will probably make some good money.” Since he was a master of “cracking the situation” he cracked way through the entrance exam and found himself in the PhD program of the said institute. Not being a man of learning, and incapable of the attention spans needed to acquire vast knowledge of several domains of inquiry, he was not really capable of tackling any major research problem. However, being the cracker that he was he always had something show for this PhD adviser. Those were also days when research in bhArata was still in an embryonic stage and little progress could go a long way. Soon he realized that if he had 5 years worth of labor, irrespective of the significance or clarity of his findings, he could put something together that would pass off as a dissertation. After all even the institute was eager to graduate PhD students. Thus, after 5 years the young man was now addressed as Doctor. There was no employment in the country for such Doctors, unlike the medical variety which the institute also produced.

Just then the great mlechChadesha of krau~nchadvIpa was becoming more open for the asitavarNa-s of bhArata and the tiryagnetra-s of the far east. So he soon found a way of converting his Doctor degree into a visa to the shores of the shiny mlechChadesha and landed a job as a post-doctoral fellow in an Ivy league school in the nagara of navyAshrama. There he found himself as a minion of a great shvetatvacha lord, one of the many professor Bigs who roved the by lanes of navyAsharma. In that lord’s dominion were several other minions from the prAchya desha-s who hardly spoke any English. The lord soon took the vaNija’s reasonable level of grammatical correctness in the English language as a sign of great technical competence. For his part, the vaNija being the cracker that he was realized that the shveta lord was also no great vidvAn but an effective cracker with a good nose for what brought money and fame to his lab. Thus, he realized that it did not take much to put on a display of technical supremacy before the mlechCha lord. However, befooled by the mlechCha’s sweet, praising words he thought he was really a mahArathI, when in reality he might have been knocked down by an infantryman on the real field. Thus, when the mlechCha said he needed to take up a technically challenging problem, which had never been solved before, the vaNija felt he was really up it. But then when he actually started working in the lab, he found that he was no match in energy or finesse of the hands of the prAchya-s who worked with a demonic ferocity, as though they were raising a wall for Chin Shi Huang. Thus, for a few years he fumbled, even as the prAchya-s pounded out results that the great mlechCha lord wrote into papers published in glossy magazines.

It was for the first time in life he felt his cracker skills were being sorely tested in the field of actual technical competence. But he somehow survived in the lab using his English skills to be a valued intermediary between the wordless prAchya-s and the mlechCha lord. It was around this time he discovered a computer program called Adobe Photoshop. He was fascinated by it. He soon learned that his gels and blots, which the mlechCha overlord rejected as not being good enough, could be cleaned up to a satisfactory state with this program. Thus, for the first time he had presentable images he could show his master. This worked like magic; soon his master was converting his images into papers that were the talk of the day in magazines. After a few such magazine hits, he hinted to his master that he would like to be a lord himself. Pleased with the vaNija’s services, the mlechCha lord wrote a glowing recommendation, which got him the job of an assistant professor at a newly started institute in the mahAnagara of hastinApura in the big southern state of the mlechCha country. There he started his own lab but hardly any students joined it. So he turned to his compatriots, some of whom were at that point desperate to reach the mlechCha shores by hook or crook, and enticed them to join his lab. Not being too skilled, these men could not perform the groundbreaking experiments he needed to run his venture. It was around this time that the mlechCha country had boldly declared war on cancer, drugs, and other things. Being the vaNija that he was, he soon realized that there was money waiting to be harvested from the war on cancer. So he told his army of stragglers to girdle up and get ready to participate on the great war on cancer. He quickly made a few observations: First, to survive in the institute he needed to raise funds. There was no better way of raising funds for research than claiming that one was fighting tooth and nail in the great war on cancer. Second, he needed to put in a few papers in magazines and nail a few more in high “impact factor” journals. Third, he realized that there were certain kinds of proteins and experimental procedures that the cancer research cartel considered to be worthy of “high impact factor” publications.

Alas, the said vaNija’s ramshackle army was not up to doing any research that would break the above barriers to reach the realms of high-impact-hood. But he was after all a cracker and he suddenly remembered how Photoshop could propel him on to trajectories which no man had gone before. Soon the vaNija realized that all he needed to do was to string together a title which might have something claiming phenomenology around few “hot” molecules such as NFkB, the STATs, the JAKs, nitric oxide, p53, TNF, estrogen receptor and the like. With these names in the title, and a whole bunch of phenomenology woven around them with a truth claim regarding cancer, one could brazenly march into the august British tabloid, or the venerable American magazine or any of other lesser high-impact factor journals if the magazine turned down the effort. Ironically, if one sent these same tabloids and journals some genuine fundamental research they would curtly tell you that it was of no interest to their “broad” readership. Working feverishly with Photoshop the vaNija started manufacturing gels, blots and cell images that suited his whims. With gay elan he rubbed off a band here or introduced a non-existent band there. Thus, sometimes he made cells look the way he wanted, other times he produced audacious interactions between proteins and epigenetically marked peptides in histones, and yet other times he made proteins remodel nucleosomes submitting to his will! With practice he moved from a cheap con-artist to an artful dodger. Lo and behold! His delicate Photoshop pieces were soon gracing the English tabloid, which Chinese would kill to publish in, or the venerable journals of biological sciences or the awfully bloated cancer research journals. The Journal of Cell Biology was well-known for its stiff stance towards manufactured data, taking pride in claiming to be a “high impact” journal and a pioneer in calling out data manipulation. But the said cracker sneaked one of his Photoshop masterpieces in, right through the defenses of JCB. Looking admiringly at his manuscript’s proofs he knew he had truly come of age, a dhUrta like him had not existed – he was invulnerable! He had vanity articles prepared about himself: they declared him to be a great scientist though he knew not what scientists really did. Even the mlechCha-s bought that and feted him in their rAjadhAnI as a titled professor.

An inner circle of compatriots he corrupted with his duNDukatva and initiated them into the inner secrets of the hastini gharAna of cancer research. Thereafter he placed them in universities in the US and in IITs and other respectable educational centers of the secular republic of India. Armed with the guhya rahasya-s of Photoshop and more recently GIMP they were to conduct cutting edge research. Thus, millions of dollars and lakhs of rupees were consumed and are being consumed in supporting the brilliant Photoshop artwork of these fearless cancer warriors while draining the exchequer that could have aided fundamental scientific discovery.

Modern dinosaurs are endothermic but were the extinct Cenozoic dinosaurs endothermic? If so were the Mesozoic dinosaurs endothermic? Modern mammals are endothermic, were the extinct Cenozoic mammals endothermic? Were the Mesozoic mammals endothermic and what about the Permian stem mammals endothermic?

Interestingly, the scientific logic to answer these questions was relatively vague until recently. Rather the answer depended more on a certain incomplete intuition rather than logic. When it came to dinosaurs most workers could easily recognize extinct Cenozoic dinosaurs as cognates of modern ones and considered them endothermic. However, when they slid back to the Mesozoic, not all workers could easily recognize the link between those dinosaurs and the modern ones, even though as early as Thomas Huxley the link was already becoming apparent. So there was the great debate as to whether the Mesozoic dinosaurs were endothermic or not. In the case of the mammals the intuition ran almost the opposite way. Few people even thought it as being a worthwhile question to investigate whether Mesozoic mammals were endothermic – they simply had to be! For many this even organically extended to the Permian with everything within clade Theriodontia or even Therapsida being considered endothermic. It was only after the great anatomist Witmer clearly outlined the principle of the extant phylogenetic bracket (EPB) that people realized what the logic was to tackle such questions. Since crocodiles are exothermic and extant dinosaurs are endothermic the principle of the EPB showed that it simply could not be assumed that the stem mammals or the stem birds, i.e. Mesozoic dinosaurs, were endothermic. It needed independent biological arguments to establish their physiological status. At the same time the intuitive reasoning could be converted to a more evidence-based version based on the idea that if several unique derived features were shared by a subset of fossil stem groups and their extant crown then it is more likely that they also shared the un-preserved features: a higher Bayesian prior. Thus, though Rhizodontiformes, Osteolepiformes and Tristichopteridae are stem birds they are less likely to be endothermic than the stem bird Eodromeus.

Ironically, the anti-Darwinian anatomist Richard Owen was the first to hint that the dinosaurs might have been endothermic in a monograph he wrote in 1842:
“The Dinosaurs, having the same thoracic structure as the Crocodiles, may be concluded to have possessed a four-chambered heart; and, from their superior adaptation to terrestrial life, to have enjoyed the function of such a highly-organized centre of circulation to a degree more nearly approaching that which now characterizes the warm-blooded Vertebrata.” -British Fossil Reptiles

However, given the bias of the incomplete intuition, and lack of Bayesian inference, until the efforts of Ostrom and his successor Bakker, the collective wisdom deemed the Mesozoic dinosaurs to be coldblooded sluggards trudging along in the slow lane, not surprisingly doomed to become extinct. Bakker’s colorful advocacy for Mesozoic dinosaurs catalyzed a great deal of introspection on this question. Not all of this was great science. Indeed, one of the great smokescreens of the entrenched slow lane advocates was the myth of gigantothermy (something hammered by the artist Paul as early as 1990):
They claimed that the dinosaurs came in all shapes and sizes, so they should have had a “diversity” in thermal physiology. Grudgingly they admitted that the smaller Mesozoic theropods might have had true endothermy, although perhaps lower metabolic rates than their extant representatives. But they insisted that no way could the sauropods, large ornithischians and even large theropods have had endothermy. Instead, they brought out the bizarre idea of gigantothermy – i.e. their giant sizes allowed them to retain heat and thereby achieve buffering of environmental temperature changes to become inertial homeotherms. While the physics of this was rather straightforward, few questioned the biological utility of this claim. When it came to mammals no one thought it very meaningful to question how a mouse had a similar thermal physiology as a blue whale. But for these guys the thermophysiology of Compsognathus had to be different from that of Brachiosaurus or Shantungosaurus.

The true ineffectiveness of inertial homeothermy was put to actual test recently by Seymour by using crocodiles that at large sizes are good models this mode of thermophysiology. The crocodiles were approached at night and secured with a barb and cord causing them to thrash violent till they were exhausted. The time they took to get completely exhausted was recorded and then their muscle and blood lactate was measured. With this their anaerobic power generation was calculated. Summing this up with their aerobic power generation their total power production was determined. The results are shown below.

Seymour concluded: “A 1 kg crocodile at 30°C produces about 16 watts from aerobic and anaerobic energy sources during the first 10% of exhaustive activity, which is 57% of that expected for a similarly sized mammal. A 200 kg crocodile produces about 400 watts, or only 14% of that for a mammal.”

The importance of this observation that gigantothermy is no match for true endothermy. A corollary to this was dinosaurs could not have excluded endothermic mammals from most high mass terrestrial ecosystems if they were merely gigantothermic, they had to be endothermic. Of course this argument would not hold if one suggested that the Mesozoic mammals were exothermic. However, this suggestion is seriously compromised by the phylogenetic inference that rhe common ancestor of monotremes, placentals and marsupials was genuinely endothermic even if with a somewhat lower body temperature. There is no doubt that this common ancestor dates back to the Mesozoic.

Now do modern and Cenozoic ecosystems support this proposal?

Crocodilians and predatory mammals share the same ecosystems in several parts of the world; however, the crocodiles never compete for exactly the same niche as the mammalian predators. Throughout the Cenozoic there is little evidence for exothermic crocodilians displacing predatory mammals from their niches when they crossed paths. The primacy of crocodiles and other exothermic reptiles like large Varanus lizards in apex predator roles is mainly observed in isolated ecosystems where there were few mammals with predatory preadaptations. From our anecdotal observations, on the occasions when crocodiles and mammalian predators of comparable mass (namely the tiger in India, the lion in Africa and the jaguar in the Americas) do cross paths, the mammals on an average tend to hold the upper hand due to superior wattage during direct conflict. In contrast, throughout the Cenozoic terrestrial dinosaurs have tend to at least make multiple attempts to occupy predatory niches in direct competition with mammals: the gastornithids in Europe and North America, the uncertain Zhongyuanus in Asia, the phorusrhacoids in South America, Lavocatavis in Africa and Bullockornis in Australia. At least in South America the dinosaurs remained the apex predators for most of the Cenozoic. These observations would seem to support the above contention that with gigantothermy alone the dinosaurs could not have excluded the endothermic mammals from many niches in the Mesozoic.

However, one might raise the counterexample of Australia where despite the emergence of several marsupial predators there is some evidence that mekosuchine crocodiles might have taken the place of apex predators. However, certain anatomical features suggest that Quinkana might have even re-evolved a degree of real endothermy. The same might have been true for the pristichampsid crocodiles from the Eocene of North America and Eurasia. In conclusion by itself the argument for Mesozoic dinosaur endothermy as corollary to the lower power production has ecological support though not of an unequivocal kind (given the Australian example).

Continued…

The account of the mantra practice of these kaumAra goddesses was originally intended as part of the great skanda vrata. Given that that might take a while to complete, and that these goddess might be worshiped in other rites in different contexts, it is separately described here.

The worship of kumAra in the circle of twelve dreadful goddesses might be done as part of pediatric pacifications or for victory in battles. The great kumAra is invoked in the middle of a circle of these goddess. First the oblations are made to kumAra, followed by those to the twelve goddesses.

He makes at least one oblation with the following offerings to kumAra:
milk, curds, bean-rice, cakes, sesame seeds, ground mung beans, red kidney beans, sweet syrup, cooked goat/sheep meat, beer and fruit jam.

If he desires to perform the rite for medical reasons he uses the mantra:
vyAdhiM hara mahAbAho mahAbhaya-vinAshana |
prasanno deva-senAni vikalaM trAhi rogiNaM huM phaT svAhA ||

If he desires victory against his foes he offers with:
OM shatrUn jahi kuru kuru kushalaM! aghorAya mahAghorAya nejameShAya namo huM khaT phaT mR^it svAhA ||

The skanda-mAtR^i-s of this circle are:
1) vimochinI; 2) mohinI; 3) sunandA; 4) pUtanA; 5) AsurI; 6)revatI; 7)shakunI; 8)pishAchikA; 9) pAshinI; 10) mahAmarI; 11) kAlikA; 12) bhAminI

Continued…

Visualize a situation where a plasmid encoding a bacteriocin infects a bacterium. This bacteriocin kills all other conspecifics (to the extent we can define a conspecific in bacteria). Consequently, the rivals who might compete for the same resource as the bacterium are killed and it gets to monopolize the resources. But things are not so straightforward as this is a typical colicin-like bacteriocin: for the bacteriocin to be released the cell needs to be lysed. Hence, the advantage of killing competitors cannot be accrued unless there is sacrifice of self via lysis. So when we look at it from the viewpoint of fitness the situation becomes a little more complicated. With respect to bacterial fitness: The fitness of a solitary bacterium infected by the said plasmid, which has not clonally proliferated, is not positively affected. It cannot gain an advantage from the toxicity of the bacteriocin because in order for that bacteriocin to act it must burst, in the process nullifying its fitness. However, if it has clonally proliferated, implying that the plasmid has clonally expanded along with it, then it might accrue a positive effect on fitness. Typically about 1-5% of the cells carrying the bacteriocin-producing plasmid undergo lysis releasing the bacteriocin which kills the competitors. The cells which undergo lysis have their fitness reduced to 0. However, their kin have a major fitness increase due to the toxicity of the bacteriocin towards their rivals. Thus, in this situation by the principle of included fitness, the fitness of the plasmid-bearing lysed cells is not 0 but positive and most probably greater than their own typical individual fitness (i.e., if they did not sacrifice themselves) due to huge benefit to kin (Haldane/Hamilton’s inequality: r*B-C>0; where (‘r’ is the genetic relatedness of the beneficiary to the self-sacrificer, i.e., probability that a random locus is identical by descent in the two; ‘B’ is the reproductive benefit gained by the beneficiary of the self-sacrifice in colicin production; ‘C’ is the fitness cost to the self-sacrificer). This scenario is particularly likely when the kin of the plasmid-bearing bacteria have formed a biofilm, or a colony, or are are living in a limited volume, with conspecific competitors, because the sacrifice of the bacteriocin-releasing cells will directly benefit the kin in the vicinity. Now from the viewpoint of the fitness of the bacteriocin-producing plasmid: When the clonal kin of the lysed cells accrue a fitness increase the plasmid also accrues the same increase as it resides within and replicates along with them. Whereas the fitness of the lysed cells is close to 0, the plasmid released from them upon lysis could transform other cells. Thus, the plasmid’s fitness is unlikely to be 0, in fact it might even more than that of the host bacteria.

A related situation, although involving distinct species rather than conspecifics, might be seen in the case of the harlequin ladybird Harmonia axyridis from Asia which was introduced unthinkingly to North America for pest-control. Here, it started massively out-competing the native ladybird Coccinella septempunctata, even though the latter eats the eggs and larvae of the invasive H.axyridis. Recent studies have revealed a remarkable basis for this phenomenon: It involves use a biological weapon by H.axyridis in the form a microsporidian parasite similar to Nosema thompsoni. H.axyridis bears this microsporidian in its blood (haemolymph) but it does not appear to harm it. It is transmitted inter-generationally, as the eggs are supplied with microsporidian spores that then perpetuate the infection in the larva. When C.septempunctata eats the eggs or larvae of H.axyridis the microsporidian infects the former and causes its death. In this situation we suspect that H.axyridis incurs a cost for bearing the microsporidian, but it is greatly offset by the fitness benefit accrued from the survival of its offspring and and death of its rivals.

Now, there are also other scenarios to consider. A lytic bacteriophage like T4 might infect a bacterial cell. The phage while injecting its DNA, also deploys Alt one of its three ADP-ribosyltransferases to modify all the host RNA polymerase subunits. Now this modified RNA polymerase, rather than transcribing genes of the host bacterium starts transcribing viral early genes. Thus, the host machinery now serves the virus to make more copies of itself eventually lysing the bacterium and releasing its progeny copies. Here, the bacterium is necessary for the virus to propagate but its fitness is reduced to 0 even as the virus’s fitness greatly increases. There could be a more intermediate situation with other viruses like Lambda. Here the virus might infect a bacterial cell but not start replication right away to kill it. Instead it adopts a lysogenic lifestyle and lies integrated in the host genome and replicating along with it. In this phase, such viruses often tend to improve the fitness of the host – they typically confer resistance to other viruses, they might produce toxins that help the bacterium overwhelm the host it is infecting or produce toxin to kill rival bacteria. Thus, the virus infect increases the fitness of the host temporarily. But one fine moment, typical when the host is down and not looking good, the virus replicates and bursts the cell releasing its progeny. Thus, in the long term the virus’s fitness always increases whereas that of the bacterium goes down.

Why did we narrate all these well-known biological phenomena? The point is to find parallels to the West Asian phenomenon of khilonmAda that has swept over the world. First one might ask if the comparison to the above genetic replicators valid? After all khilonmAda is a memetic construct. Being a memetic construct it loads itself in brains and depends on altering behaviors of the biological organism to increase is copy number, but is entirely dependent on the biological organism for its very existence. In this sense it parallels the plasmids and viruses which are entirely dependent on the host. It has also been rather successful as the numbers point. This is not unlike many viruses which are present in enormous numbers in the environment. But the more specific question is whether it is like a bacteriocin bearing plasmid that appears to increase the overall fitness of the host despite certain costs, or a lytic virus that subverts and reduces host fitness or something in between as a lysogenic virus that might confer some short term fitness benefits but in the long term could reduce fitness? Even before one gets in such comparisons one could say: Given that religiosity arises from biological determinants, is khilonmAda not any different from the many other religions, which are comparable meme complexes, which compete for the same niche provided by the neural architecture supporting religiosity? So why is it khilonmAda a memetic virus rather than the others?

If one observed other heathen religions then there is a strong component of vertical inheritance along with other meme-complexes and even to a degree the genes. Thus, the various heathen Indo-European religions mirror the phylogeny of the Indo-European languages. At an even higher level there are deep homologies seen in the religious traditions of the out-African Homo sapiens and faint lingering elements of homology going back to Africa. This reflects a core vertical signal in their phylogeny. Thus, these memes are similar to core cellular genes that have different depths of a discernible vertical signal in their evolution. This means that these religions in large part were organically inherited like genes from the parents. Of course there are lateral transfers of religious memes between cultures following organic religions (just as most genes are laterally transferred), but these are incorporated into the original framework of the recipient and are often accompanied by spread of genes. An example of the former which we have discussed on these pages is the transfer of Indo-Iranian religious memes to central Asian Altaic traditions. The spread of the dharma to Indonesia is an example of gene spread accompanying the movement of memes. Thus, the Hindus of Bali show a significant genetic component that is traceable to bhAratavarSha. These kinds of lateral transfers of memes are also usually not accompanied by loss of the organic connections to the land of the recipient population. In contrast, the khilonmAda [Footnote 1] aggressively propagates breaking the vertical inheritance pattern and erases all traces of the older meme-complexes within a short time span. Indeed, it breaks the key pattern of inheritance from parents in one generation can spread across a large population of genetically unrelated brains. This pattern indeed is best described by analogies of selfish elements from the biological world. Hence, the above precedents offered by plasmids and viruses are correct analogies for discussing the marUnmAda. To illustrate this analogy further: just like the viral enzymes such the ADP ribosyltranferase modifies host proteins to now do things favorable for the virus, khilonmAda makes the bearer do things favorable for its spread: These include acts such as da’wah, or even those where he may nullify his fitness by an of ghazwat.

Now, several modern observers note that marUnmAda actually enhances the fitness of the infected population in modern settings. If one closely notes the context of fitness enhancement by the khilonmAda we find that it confers devastating success to the infected individuals when they are embedded in a population infected by other memes such as modernism, secularism, liberalism, feminism, and secular humanism. Thus, we could compare the latter memes to lytic viruses that reduce the fitness of the infected individuals and the average population fitness. In contrast, khilonmAda is like a lysogenic virus that confers resistance against these lytic memetic viruses to individuals it infects, there by raising their and their population’s average fitness. It might also act like a lysogenic phage helping the virus’s bacterial host poison its host or competitors with toxin. Here the khilonmAda favors the “secretion” of memes such as Islamophilia and the accusation of “Islamophobia”, which debilitate the defenses of the uninfected competitors against the bearers of the khilonmAda. In other situations indeed it might enhance fitness of the bearer by acting somewhat like the bacteriocin-coding plasmid. The best analogy here is the early phase of khilonmAda,where it appears to have enhanced the fitness of the marucharash-chIrashiraH-s. Essentially, it was like a bombshell toxin that made the infected individuals devitalize competitors in a big way, even as the khilimoha itself spread both vertically by the reproductive expansion of the infected marucharash-chIrashiraH-s at the expense of other West Asian peoples, and laterally by the forcible conversion of the defeated peoples.

Now this raises the question, if marUnmAda has provided fitness increments to the infected individual on an average to the infected population, then does it make sense to switch to it after all, because it might enhance your fitness. Here is where things get more tricky. First, infection with marUnmAda is unlikely to enhance fit of the individual perpetually and in situations other than the above mentioned cases where it wins:
1) When there is a large uninfected population in the vicinity then infection by khilimoha might benefit the individual because it induces him to perform acts of ghazwat that allows him to capture women from the uninfected and increase his fitness by fathering offspring on them. However, as this population decreases then there are diminishing returns for ultimately the sex ratio tends to 1. A situation much like there being few or no bacteria in their given space of existence that are negative for the bacteriocin plasmid. No fitness gain, perhaps only loss. But this might trigger warfare within the khilimohita population resulting in deaths that could bring down fitness.

2) If an uninfected individual voluntarily contracts khilonmAda hoping that it might enhance his fitness, in most cases this was unlikely to be the case. For much of its existence khilonmAda ran as a pyramid scheme. Those who got it first benefit the most and at the expense of those who got in latter. For example, if a guy decided to become khilonmadita he is most likely to enter as a lowly ajlaf rather than as an ashraf, a sheikh or an amir. Indeed he was most likely to be cannon fodder who became a shahid nullified fitness in a Jihad rather than being the recipient of a train of bibi-s to spend his nights enhancing his fitness. This situation is illustrated on multiple occasions in the history of marUnmAda in the subcontinent of jambudvIpa. For example, at the root of the split of the Bahmanid empire in Southern India was the conflict between the Deccani marUnmatta-s and the amirs and sheikhs arriving from the maru and central Asia. Despite having become marUnmatta-s the Deccanis were hardly getting much traction in terms of accruing benefits that might enhance their fitness – these instead went to the big beards arriving from abroad.

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Footnote 1: This is of course also true of the sister Abrahamism, the pretonmAda; however, for the purposes of simplicity we do not discuss it in depth in this note. The essential ideas developed here also apply to it and to a degree its secularized versions such as Marxism, liberalism, feminism, modernism, secular humanism, secularism, Ayn-Randism,and many other such. While the pretonmAda came first, the khilonmAda cleared its clutter and made fashioned itself as the epitome of its essence.

Continued…

The Kashmirian brAhmaNa jonarAja wrote a rAjataraMgiNi describe the rule of various Moslem tyrants in Kashmira after the end of Hindu rule. He is rather laudatory in his description of the Sultan Zayn al Abidin (reign 1418-1470 CE), who is described as being rather pro-Hindu and non-iconoclastic. However, this did not mean that mayhem did not occur in his reign. The incident we present below from jonarAja’s memoir has reverberations in the incidents that have happened even in the last 25 years even as the marUnmatta assault is aided and abetted by the mlechCha-s and chIna-s.

makka-deshAgato jAtu pustakADambaraM vahan |
saidAla-nAmA yavano rAjendraM tam upAgatam ||
A Mohammedan named alI the Sayyid who came from the Mecca country, carrying ever-empty verbose texts (i.e. the rAkShasa-pustaka and the recollections of the Adyunmatta) approached the sulTAn (Zayn al Abidin).

guNAn vikatthamAnaM taM guNirAgI nareshvaraH |
upAgachChat pratidinaM darshanAyetaro yathA ||
As he proudly declared his ancestry (i.e. from the Adyunmatta), the sulTAn, attracted by endowed men, went to see him every day as if he was the Sayyid, and the Sayyid was the ruler.

sa tasya paTahasyeva rAjApashyat kramAd asau |
antaH sAravihInatvaM parIkShAyAM vichakShaNaH ||
In due course the discerning sulTAn realized by examining [the Sayyid] that the Sayyid was bereft of substance as an empty kettle-drum (That is he was all talk with little substance).

mlechCha-maskariNi kShoNiprANesho nirguNe .api saH |
premANaM nAmuchat putre piteva karuNArNavaH ||
Even though the Mohammedan godman was without merits, the ruler of the land, an ocean of compassion, did not take away his kindness to him like a father from his son.

pradoShasyeva tamasAM durghanasyeva vidyutAm |
doShANAM bahutA tasya prajAH samudavejayat ||
His many vices the bothered the people, as the darkness of the evening hour or the lighting flashes from a dark cloud.

tasminn avasare kashchid yogirAjo jitendriyaH |
nyavikShatonnate stambhe yogAbhyAsasya siddhaye ||
At that time a certain, master of yoga who had controlled his senses sat down on a tall pillar to perfect his yoga practice.

stambhopari navAhAni nirAhAram apashyataH |
tasyAshiShaiva mahiShI rAj~naH putram ajIjanat ||
He [performed yoga] atop the pillar for nine days not bothered by his abstinence from food. Indeed by his blessings the bIbI gave birth to a son.

tapasyatas tathA tasya tatra tan navamaM dinam |
rAj~nas tv anavamaM putra-janma-kAla-mahotsavaiH ||
This ninth day of the yogin’s tapasya there [ atop the post] was indeed however, a day of great celebration for the sulTAn on the occasion of his son’s birth.

hemantAnte patati tuhinaM phAlguNe valgu valgad |
dIpasyApi sphurati sutarAM shAntikAle .atidAhaH ||
At the end of the cold season in the phAlguNa month the snowflakes dance beautifully,
a lovely dance. Just before a lamp dies out it flares up greatly. A sudden cold

shaityodreko vahati vahati grIShmakAle tuShAraM
vastu prAyaH prathayati nijaM dharmam AyAti nAshe ||
The coming of a cold wave during summer brings snow. When destruction is coming, things commonly display their innate intuition [for catastrophe].

tapaH kavacham aspR^iShTvA tam adho mArgaNair gatam |
prahartur iva nirdeShTuM bhaviShyantIM tathA gatim ||
Avoiding contact with the yogin, whose armor was his tapasya, he [the Sayyid] went below, and stationed himself aiming to assail [the yogin].

rAjamAnyaM tam Alokya kupyantaM shAnta-mAnasaH |
nirNayAd achalad varNI nayAn na tu bhayodayAt ||
[The yogin] of controlled mind saw the frenzied Sayyid who was honored by the sulTAn. Then out of prudence the yogin acted; but certainly not from fear [of the Mohammadan].

sa stambhAn na mahAdhairyAd avArohan mahAmanAH |
naivArohaj jagad dR^iShTiM sadyo dyAm api yogavit ||
This high-minded yogin did not descend from the pillar due to his great courage. Nor did he ascend to heaven, from where he could see the world.

atithiM yogapathikaM mA vadhIr mAm iti bruvan |
mlechChamaskariNA varNI khaDga-ghAtair achUrNyata ||
“I am a guest traveling on the yoga path, do not kill me!” he said. But the Mohammedan godman hacked him into pieces with strikes of his sword.

aty artha-darshana-dveShAn madirA-mada-mohitaH |
sa mlechCha-sahito yogirAjaM tam avadhIch CharaiH ||
Intoxicated by the liquor of hate towards what he saw [the yogin] the Mohammedans who accompanied him [Sayyid] struck the yoga-master with arrows.

saMtaptair malinaiH sthUlair janAnAM tad vilokanAt |
bhUtale patitaM vAShpair apavAdaish cha rAjani ||
Having seen that [the killing of the yogin] people shed hot, stained, heavy tears on the ground, conveying with that their censure to the sulTAn.

pR^ithvI-nAtho .atha tach ChrutvA shuddhy artham iva magnavAn |
bhI-hrI-shoka-krudhAshcharya-kR^itya-chintArNaveShu saH ||
Having heard of that the lord of the land as if to purify himself, dipped himself into an ocean of fear, shame, sorrow, anger, bewilderment and brooding over what to do.

prathamodbhUta putre .api tasminn ahni mahIbhujA |
nAsnAyi nAbhyavAhAri na vyavAhAri nAkathi ||
Even though it was the day his first son was born, the ruler of the land did not bath, eating, hold court or talk.

anyedyur bhUpatiH pR^iShTa-smR^iti-j~na-gurukovidaH |
hantur daNDaM vadhaM shR^iNvan karuNAyantrito .abhavat ||
On the next day, when he was told by his learned guru-s who knew the smR^iti-s that [the Sayyid] had to be sentenced to death he was overcome with compassion.

pratIpaM kharam Aropya pratihaTTaM paribhramam |
nara-mUtrAbhiShiktasya kUrchasya parikartanam ||
As punishment he sentenced the Sayyid to be seated on a donkey and paraded around the market place. Human urine was poured on him and he was shaved of completely.

ShThIvanaM sarvalokAnAM pretAntrair bAhubandhanam |
jIvan-maraNam AdikShad daNDaM tasya kR^ishAyateH ||
Everyone was to spit on him and he was tied up with the entrails of corpse. Thus, it was to be a bad fate of living death for him.

rAjani mlAni-hInAni dik-saugandhya-vahAni cha |
apatan nAka-puShpANi paurAshIr-vachanAni cha ||
Then heavenly flowers, unwilting carrying fragrances from all corners showered on the sulTan and also the praise of the people.

There are some things one could read between the lines:
1) The Sayyid though very empty was greatly honored by the sulTAn. The excessive honoring of sharifs by Indian sulTans in the pre-Mogol period has been noted in other cases too (example Mohammad ibn Tughlaq placing himself at the foot of Sayyid). They obviously held a tremendous prestige to the point that the Turkic sultans prostrated themselves before these Arabs. This account shows that Zayn was very much taken in by the prestige of this Arab despite his Hinduizing tendencies.
2) Ultimately, there is no real safety for Hindus under Mohammedan rule, however, pro-Hindu he might be a Hindu might be murdered as long as there are blood thirsty Meccans around. The sulTan took the murder of the yogin by the Mohammedans seriously enough to punish the Sayyid strongly. Yet this and other actions of his [footnote 1] do not mean in any way that even a “good” Mohammadan rule is a safety net for Hindus. For after all his successors can restore true Mohammedanism even if he does not.

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Footnote 1
jonarAja says:
hindavaH sUha-bhaTTena balAd ye pIDitA bhR^isham |
paradeshaM gatAs te tu bibhrato veSha-kalpanAm ||
Hindus were violently oppressed by As sUhabhaTTa (who converted to Mohammedanism as Saif-ad-dIn or the sword of Islam and aided Sikandar bhUt-shikan in his persecution of Hindus). They fled to foreign lands, they took on the disguise of Muslims.

nijAchAre ratA nityaM tadAchAra-dviSho hR^idA |
svam AchAram anuShThAtuM preritAsh cha dvijair balAt ||
Yet in their hearts they were true to their own tradition [i.e. Hindu dharma; that is why one encounters several Moslem surnames among Kashmirian Hindus] and hated Mohammadanism. The twice-born strongly inspired them them to uphold their own tradition [It is important to note that the Kashmirian brAhmaNa-s despite being the target of much oppression struggled hard to uphold the Hindu dharma].

dAritAH svatrANabhayAd utkochArpaNa tatparAH |
rakShitA bhUmipAlena tad upadrava-vAraNAt ||
Tortured and from the fear of protecting themselves they applied themselves to find ways to exit from Kashmir [note that Saif-ad-dIn had posted forces to track down refugees exiting Kashmir and capture them and convert them to Islam]. However, the sulTAn Zayn intending to dispel the troubles inflicted by the trouble-elephant [Saif or Sikandar] gave them protection [He enabled Hindus to return to Kashmir; R suspects that her ancestors might have fled via Jammu to Kangra during Sikandar's reign].

The daitya-s prahrAda/prahlAda and virochana are known in the veda itself. The killing of prahlAda and his clan by indra in a battle in the high heavens is alluded to in more than one post-RV vaidika text. This great battle between indra and prahrAda is also alluded to in the epics on multiple occasions:
jigIShator yudhAnyonyam indra-prahlAdayor iva | (mahAbharata 3.270.12cd)

prAhrAda is among the daitya-s killed by indra in the epics consistent with the vaidika account:
rathenAnena maghavA jitavA~n shambaraM yudhi |
namuchiM vala-vR^itrau cha prahlAda-narakAv api ||
bahUni cha sahasrANi prayutAny arbudAni cha |
rathenAnena daityAnAM jitavAn maghavAn yudhi || mahAbharata 3.165.18-19 (“critical”)

Seated on this car indra conquered shambara in battle. Seated on this chariot maghavAn conquered namuchi, vala, vR^itra, prahlAda and naraka along with thousands, millions and tens of millions of daitya-s.

In the taittirIya brAhmaNa 1.5.9-10 the daitya prahrAda kAyAdhava is said to hide his son virochana in a crater (termed a pradara) in the ground so that the deva-s might not kill him. Hence, the brAhmaNa in its characteristic style states that one must not drink water from a crater – implying that it might be poisoned by the presence of the daitya virochana.

prahrAda was an enemy of the deva-s in all early aitihAsika and paurANika narratives consistent with the vaidika account. In the kurma-purANa he is described as fighting viShNu during his attack on hiraNyakashipu and is defeated by a puruSha emanated by viShNu. Later he attacks nR^isiMha and flees to save himself after being struck by him. In the harivaMsha he attacks the deva-s along with his grandson bali and eventually subjugated by viShNu. In the shalyaparvan the arrogant prahlAda is defeated by kArttikeya. Only later the zealous vaiShNava-s in their drive to elevate viShNu over indra made him a positive figure and an ideal devotee of viShNu. In fact this is in contrast with the view of the early vaiShNava-s who mention his defeat along with that of other daitya-s and dAnava-s as an act of viShNu, evidently alluding to the famous dAnava-conquering strides of viShNu already known in the veda:

AsurIM shriyam AhR^itya trIMl lokAn sa janArdanaH |
saputradArAn asurAn pAtAle vinyapAtayat ||
namuchiH shambarash chaiva prahlAdash cha mahAmanAH |
pAda-pAtAbhi-nirdhUtAH pAtAle vinipAtitAH || (an old vaiShNAva AkhyAna found in certain recensions of the bhArata)

He janArdana having seized the wealth of the asura-s and the three worlds pushed the asura-s along with their sons and wives down to the netherworld. The mighty namuchi, shambhara and prahlAda were trampled under foot and pushed down into the netherworld [by viShNu].

However, their famous famous hiraNyakashipu is not mentioned in the shruti. Nevertheless there are hints that he existed in the ancient Indo-Aryan tradition:
1) The early vaMsha-s invariably mention him as a daitya the father of prahrAda. E.g. the ancient daitya-sR^iShTi in the mahAbhArata states-

eka eva diteH putro hiraNyakashipuH smR^itaH |
nAmnA khyAtAs tu tasyeme putrAH pa~ncha mahAtmanaH ||
prahrAdaH pUrvajas teShAM saMhrAdas tadanantaram |
anuhrAdas tR^itIyo .abhUt tasmAch cha shibi-bAShkalau ||
prahrAdasya trayaH putrAH khyAtAH sarvatra bhArata |
virochanash cha kumbhash cha nikumbhash cheti vishrutAH ||
virochanasya putro .abhUd balir ekaH pratApavAn |
balesh cha prathitaH putro bANo nAma mahAsuraH || mahAbharata 1.59.17-20 (“critical”)

diti bore one son who was known as hiraNyakashipu. Hear the names of his fives sons being narrated: prahrAda was the first, followed by saMhrAda thereafter; the third was anuhrAda followed by shibhi and bAShkala. prahrAda three sons O bhArata are said to be virochana, kumbha and nikumbha. virochana’s had one son the valiant bali. bali’s son was know by the name of bANa the great demon.
[Thus as in the veda the eldest son of prahrAda is described as virochana.]

2) In the rAmAyaNa there is an allusion the tale of indra capturing the wife of hiraNyakashipu. The paurAnika narratives (e.g. bhAgavata 4.18.12) indicate that she, kayAdhu (consistent with the vaidika form of prahrAda’s matronym) was the daughter of the dAnava jambha who was killed by indra. Other paurANika narratives suggest that indra abducted kayAdhu to preclude the birth of her dreadful and mighty son prahrAda, but subsequently released her (in some accounts upon nArada’s suggestion).

Continued…