Happy Vijayadashmi

V P Jain
With the symbolic burning of the effigies of the demon Ravana and the immersion of
the idols of Goddess Durga, the festivities of Dussehra will be wrapped up only to be
re-ignited next year. For centuries, the event has been celebrated every year as
Vijayadashmi as a mark of the victory of good over evil Goddess Durga slaying
demon Mahishasura and Lord Rama killing the demon Ravana. Rama valiantly
fought and killed Ravana to safeguard the dignity and honour of women, and in
particular his beloved wife Sita. The great triumph of the epics, like the Victorian
novels, lay in their ability to create characters. The memorableness of the epic
characters was largely achieved by means of a process of rigid selection. Each
character embodies a few dominant traits and no more: they were reached by a
process of abstraction as downright heroes or villains. Whatever might interfere with
our perception of these characteristics and blur the outline of the clear cut portrait
was ruthlessly excluded.

Now real people are not just good or bad. They are not, if modern psychology is to
be believed, composed of elements, known as qualities at all. Capable at one moment
of supreme heroism, he is guilty at another of incredible meanness. If one sets out to
convey the whole variety of contradictory moods and impulses which a person is, one
will not produce a straightforward tale in which clear cut personages, reacting
according to their natures, play their appointed and predictable parts. Significantly,
Both Ravana and Mahisashura, despised by the millions, also have their admirers.
Ravana was the son of Vishrava and Kaikesi and grandson of Pulastya, a Brahmin
rishi. Ravana was a devout follower of Shiva, a great scholar, a capable ruler and a
maestro of the Veena. He was extremely powerful and had ten heads. His ten heads
represented his knowledge of the six shastras and the four Vedas. Ravana was also
depicted as the author of the Ravana Samhita, a book on Hindu astrology, and also
Arka Prakasham, a book on Siddha medicine and treatment (Wiki).

Similarly, In the broad traditions of Hinduism, Mahishasura is not considered a

demon at all by many tribal communities in India who continue to organise
Mahishasur festivals in his honour in their villages and also in universities. In the
same vain, Rama is seen to be uncharitable to Sita by feminist friends. The inner life,
it is increasingly realised, may be more important than the outer, and the strife
between conflicting elements in the same person more vivid than strife between
persons. It is a painful irony that some ritual systems grow to such proportions that
the significance of the metaphor is lost.

Not surprisingly, both Mahisashur and Ravana, as a phenomenon continue to

proliferate. They keep coming back with vengeance in various avatars: armed with
ego, anger, greed, lust, envy and perversion, to commit their crimes, from rape to
arson to murder, with immunity. And the crimes are getting more dastardly and
more heinous with time. These Ravanas and Mahisashuras are truly blessed with
the nectar of immortality, the boon of patronage granted by the system in which
they operate, crime graph continuing to go up unabated. The outrage manifests only
as a ritualized response, more in the form of spectacles: festivities or blame games as
brawls on the media. What is worry some is that the brutal acts are also sanctified by
the likes of Khap Panchayats and self-appointed godmen and some cultural
organisations who shame the victims by invoking the proverbial Lakshamana-Rekha
as moral boundary not to be crossed. Mind you, Lakshaman Rekha is only a
concocted and fabricated episode, which does not find any mention in the Ramayana
by Valmiki, or for that matter, in Ramcharitmanasa by saint Tulsidas, revered as the
most sacred epics by the Hindus. The zealots are using metaphors like Lakshaman
rekha, as an alibi, to accuse the victims of indiscretion, inviting rape and murder as
retribution. The moral absolutism gives them the right to annihilate what they judge
to be amoral: resort to street vigilantism to shout down or physically assault those
not in consonance with them. Indeed, such militancy is not only presumed to be
right, but an obligation.

In the Atharava Veda, an entire hymn, the Prithvi Sukta, has been devoted in praise
of Mother Earth. Earth was seen as the abode of a family of all beings, epitomized as
Vasudhaiva Kutumbukam. Moreover, one of the main postulates of the Bhagavad
Gita is that the Supreme Being resides in all beings (vasudeva sarvam) and is the
ultimate source and cause of the universal common good (sarva bhuta hita). Hindu
Dharma requires that a common good (such as the protection of the environment,
welfare of the poor and the needy, or the well-being of other living beings) takes
precedent over private goods (including individual material and personal well-
being). It is an obligation that human beings owe, not only to each other, but also to
all nature and the entire cosmos. The Srimad Bhagavata Mahapurana confirms this
basic postulate: a good devotee is the one who sees in all creation the presence of
God: he reveres the sky and the clouds, trees and animals, mountains, sprigs and
rivers as the living expression of the cosmic order from which he derives his own
being. Such veneration, respect and acceptance of God in nature ordains (Dharma)
human beings to maintain and protect the natural harmonious relationship in all
human beings and nature (sustenance).

The mother Earth as Durga, the merciful and benevolent has given us life and
nurtures it. The idea of the Earth as an integrated whole, a living being, has a long
tradition. The mythical Gaia was also the primal Greek goddess personifying the
Earth, the Greek version of "Mother Nature" or the Earth Mother. According to Gaia
hypothesis earth is a living organism and faces no threat from the demons: if they do
not mend their ways, it will continue its cosmic journey by eliminating them. As the
warrior goddess, whose mythology centres around combating evils and demonic
forces, symbolised by the likes of Ravana and Mahisasura, that threaten peace,
prosperity and dharma of the good. She in her fierce form (Bhavani) of the protective
mother goddess, also unleashes her anger against wrongdoing, violence for liberation
and destruction to empower creation. The devastation in Kedarnath to punish the
unfettered materialism and commercialisation of the holy place is still fresh in
everybodys mind. The seven hundred verses of Devi Mahatmya narrate three
separate episodes or narratives, in which the great Goddess achieves victory over
demon kings or Asuras- a depiction of good over evil. For instance in the first
episode, Vishnu battles the demons Madhu and Kaitabha with the help of Goddess
Mahatmaya. In the second episode, the Goddess takes the form of
Mahishasuramardini, the killer of demon King Mahishasura. The Goddess fought the
forces of Mahishasura, killing all his generals one by one. In the third episode, the
Goddess kills Asura kings, Shumbha and Nishumbha after long battle, much like her
fight with Mahishasura.
 But so long as the criminals continue to enjoy the patronage of the system, any
promise of reform is only wishful thinking. Surgical strikes may create euphoria as a
temporary relief but will not accord a lasting solution. Ram beheaded Ravana
umpteen number of times only to see the new ones grow soon after. Only when he
destroyed the source, the nectar in his belly, did he succeed in annihilating him.
Likewise the atrocities we face today are not aberrations but structural in character,
hard wired into the system. Attempt to wish violence away by chanting mouthed
platitudes will not work. Only systemic change will bury the Ravanas and
Mahisashurs for good.