In Defence Of The Buffalo - Durga Puja.

[prasad1]

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Evil is a cultural concept. According to the Gita, everything that exists is God and so nothing can be devoid of divinity and that includes what we call evil, writes Devdutt Pattanaik

Every year, when images of Durga impaling the asura Mahisha appear on television, I hear the anchor of the show saying, “This is the eternal battle when good wins over evil.” I have been hearing this for decades in every English television channel. And I wonder, can the word ‘evil’ be translated in Hindi or, for that matter, in any Indian language?

There’s No Evil
Most assume that evil is a universal concept. But it is not. It is a cultural concept. It is a word that is found only in cultures that believes in one life.


Evil means the absence of God. In Hinduism, as Chapter 11 of the Bhagavad Gita states, everything that exists is God and so nothing can be devoid of divinity. So there is no room for the concept of evil. Evil also means negative actions that have no cause. Since Hindus believe in rebirth, a negative event can be attributed to karma, hence it always has a cause, and so can never be evil.


So maybe the death of the asura Mahisha by Durga during Dussehra is not a moral or ethical triumph. It is rather a reflection of the earth’s fertility cycle that ends with the harvest, post monsoons. Thanks to sanjivani vidya, the earth will be regenerated and the asura will rise up again next year, ready to get killed, ensuring we always have food on the table.

Times_of_india

 

[renuka]

Evil is a cultural concept. According to the Gita, everything that exists is God and so nothing can be devoid of divinity and that includes what we call evil, writes Devdutt Pattanaik

Every year, when images of Durga impaling the asura Mahisha appear on television, I hear the anchor of the show saying, “This is the eternal battle when good wins over evil.” I have been hearing this for decades in every English television channel. And I wonder, can the word ‘evil’ be translated in Hindi or, for that matter, in any Indian language?

There’s No Evil
Most assume that evil is a universal concept. But it is not. It is a cultural concept. It is a word that is found only in cultures that believes in one life.


Evil means the absence of God. In Hinduism, as Chapter 11 of the Bhagavad Gita states, everything that exists is God and so nothing can be devoid of divinity. So there is no room for the concept of evil. Evil also means negative actions that have no cause. Since Hindus believe in rebirth, a negative event can be attributed to karma, hence it always has a cause, and so can never be evil.


So maybe the death of the asura Mahisha by Durga during Dussehra is not a moral or ethical triumph. It is rather a reflection of the earth’s fertility cycle that ends with the harvest, post monsoons. Thanks to sanjivani vidya, the earth will be regenerated and the asura will rise up again next year, ready to get killed, ensuring we always have food on the table.

Times_of_india

Some time last year there was an article about the whole Ahalya Gautama episode in one of the Sanskrit magazines.

The same about fertility of land was mentioned.

Ahalya meant unploughed/not able to be ploughed denoting its infertily status.

It was a piece of land that belonged to Sage Gautama which had excessive minerals mainly sodium making it infertile.

The reason given that excessive rains (Indra) had inundated/flooded the land and disturbing it's mineral composition.

So in other words excessive rains (a.k.a Indra) "violated" the land(Ahalya) and Gautama could not use that land anymore.

So when Lord Rama had come there the touch of His feet had restored the mineral composition again and made the land fertile and "pure" once again.

 

[amala]

And women are nearly always equated to land are they not? fertile, barren, nurture etc

 

[renuka]

And women are nearly always equated to land are they not? fertile, barren, nurture etc

I wonder what would an infertile male be equated with?

 

[nannilam_balasubramanian]

Ramba was the king of Asuras and Mahishasuran was his son. Ramba fell in love
with a water buffalo. Thus Mahishasuras was born. He was able to change
his form between human and buffalo form at his will. However, Mahishasuran
was very pious always in his meditation towards Brahma. As a result of that
Lord Brahma granted him a boon as per his wish that he would not be defeated
in any battle by any man or god. When Mahishasuran got his boon started
troubling everyone both in heaven and earth. In the process, he entered the
heaven and won all of them including the king of Gods Lord Indran, and
started driving out every one out of heaven. Then all the gods discussed
as what is to be done to get away from this demon. They created a form
of an young woman, Goddess Durga with combination of powers of all
the Gods. The Goddess Durga attacked Mahishasuran’s empire, and after
fierce fighting for nine days, he was finally killed him on the tenth day.
Goddess Durga is very powerful and who ever prays her, will get all the
benefits in the life and no evil things will approach such people.


Balasubramanian
Ambattur