Friday, 27 March 2020


Episode 59
Divine Right Theory of the King –
Atri and Prithu Maharaj.
-    Vaivaswatha Manvantara and Matsya avatāra[i]

The episode consists two small stories. While one story is significant from the perspective of political thought, the second one is significant from the perspective of cosmology. In this episode, we discuss the political thought revolving around the Divine Right Theory of the kings and its application in Bharath vis-à-vis in other countries of the west. The episode also discusses certain questions viz, - Can a Grihasta take up vanaprastha without adequately protecting the children?  And what is maturity of intellect displayed by women in ancient India?

The episode also discusses the first incarnation of Lord Vishnu, Matsya avatāra (incarnation of Vishnu as a Fish) associated with Vaivaswatha manvantara. The historical and cosmological evolution of the universe as envisaged by the rishis of ancient India, the famous Flood legend and its impact on other civilizations are also the highlight of this episode.

The Story

In the Vana Parva of Maha Bharata we come across two sages who talked so much with Yudhishtira. One is Lomasa who guided the tīrtha yātras of Pandavas and the other is sage Markandeya. In the last episode we saw Markandeya discussing the karma theory and giving tips for mtyuñjayatva (conquering disease and death). The inquisitive Yudhishtira was always interested in knowing new things and he asked Markandeya to narrate the story of Prithu Maharaj and the sage started narrating the story.

Atri Maharshi (one of the seven famous rishis among the seven Maharshis popularly known as Saptarshis)[ii] was very poor and was not possessing any wealth. He wanted to leave the village for forests for enjoying the vānaprastha (for details see the heading- understanding the story). He asked his wife and children to get prepared for the journey towards the forest.

Atri’s wife was interested in the Yagna and Yaga rituals. She told, ‘Hey, Rishi! It is dharma to distribute wealth to the dependent children before going to forests (एष वै परमो धर्मो धर्मविद्भिरुदाहृतः ॥ [iii]). The king of our country, Prithu is performing aswamedha yaga and donating very liberally to the learned brahmins. You may please go and get wealth. You can freely go to the forests after distributing the wealth to our children’.

Atri liked the sober words of his wife though he was not personally interested in meeting the king for wealth. Further he was apprehensive about the brahmins in the court of the king who were in deep hatred with Atri. Still dharma ordained that he should go and earn wealth.

He went to the court of the king and told, ‘Oh king! You are the noblest king of the world and you are the most righteous person. You are the very Vidhāta (Brahmā) upon the earth’. Gautama who was sitting in the king’s court retorted angrily, ‘Oh, Atri! Don’t equate a king with Vidhāta. How can you compare a mortal human with an immortal Vidhāta’? There were heated arguments with Atri comparing king with Indra, Vidhāta etc and Gautama calling him foolish and immature.

The courtiers were confused and sought the intervention of Sanatkumāra. Sanatkumāra was the very son of Lord Brahmā and he was known for his wisdom and intellectual acumen. He heard the arguments and proclaimed:

ब्रह्म क्षत्रेण सहितं क्षत्रं च ब्रह्मणा सह।
संयुक्तौ दहतः शत्रून्वनानीवाग्निमारुतौ ।।[iv]

(When the dharma of a brahmin and the dharma of kshatriya synchronise, it is like synchronization of wind and fire. Just as the fire accompanied by wind scorches the forests into ashes, the brahmin-kshatriya power destroys the enemies).

Oh, courtiers! The king is the embodiment of dharma. Hence, he is Indra, Prajāpati, Sukra, Vidhāta and all in one. The king is known as virāṭ, sāmrāṭ, bhūpati, npa and what not. For the fear of impending adharma the Maharshis have laid their tejas (splendour) in the kshatriyas (अधर्मादृषयो भीता बलं क्षत्रे समादधन्।- adharmādṛṣayo bhītā bala katre samādadhan। - Vana Parva 185.29). Hence, I pronounce my judgement as follows:

ततो राज्ञः प्रधानत्वं शास्त्रप्रामाण्यदर्शनात्।

उत्तरः सिद्ध्यते पक्षो येन राजेति भाषितम् ॥[v]

(Since the king adheres the śāstra pramāṇās (vedas as supreme documents), the king is supreme, and he is akin to Vidhāta (Brahmā) upon the earth).

King Prithu who was watching the arguments got delighted. He reached out to Atri for he had boldly proclaimed the supremacy of the king. He gifted huge wealth to Atri. Atri distributed the wealth gained by dharmic path (righteously) to his children and happily left for forests. The children of Atri were also happy.


Story of Vaivaswatha Manu and the Great Flood


Yudhishtira was inquisitive to hear the story of Vaivaswatha Manu and Markandeya was keen to narrate the story.

Towards the end Cākua manvantara, a great dharmic person, Vaivaswatha stood on single foot in Badarikāśrama and by raising both hands up did tapas for ten thousand years without any food or water.

When the tapas was so steadfast, a tiny fish approached him. ‘Hi, Swamy! I am afraid of bigger fish in this stream. Kindly save my life’. Vaivaswatha felt pity at the tiny tot and put it in his kamandal (pot). By the end of the day the fish became so bulky that the pot could not hold it. It asked for slightly bigger place and Vaivaswatha left the fish in a deep well. Again, by the end of the day the fish grew bigger and the deep well could not accommodate it. Vaivaswatha took it out and placed in the river Ganges. Even in the Ganges it could not manoeuvre its body. Again, it prayed to place it in an ocean and Vaivaswatha obliged the request. Though the fish was huge, surprisingly Vaivaswatha did not feel the burden of its weight.

When the fish was placed in the ocean, the fish smiled at Vaivaswatha and told him, ‘Oh, sage! A great flood is about to engulf the entire universe in another seven days; and all living and non-living beings submerge into the eternal vacuum and none can escape the fury of waters in the pralaya (the final delusion). I will send a boat tied to a big rope and you alight the boat with seeds for germinating ‘new age living beings’. I shall navigate the boat to a safer destination’.

Vaivaswatha collected the best of all seeds and waited in the ocean for the boat and alighted as soon as it arrived his place. Immediately he saw a huge fish with a fang approaching the boat. Vaivaswatha tied the rope to its fang and immediately, the fish started swimming across the fury waters that engulfed the earth and the sky. Vaivaswatha could not distinguish day and night; east and west, north and south; earth and sky and his ears were pierced with the roaring waters everywhere around. All the beings and non-beings submerged, and the only survivors were Saptarshis (seven sages), the fish and Vaivaswatha.

The fish swam for a number of years and took the boat near to the peak of the Himalaya mountain. It asked Vaivaswatha and the saptarshis to tie the boat to the peak and they did. From that day, the Himalayan peak came to be known as ‘naukā badhana’.

The fish told, ‘oh, noble people, I am the creator of this entire universe. I am the progenitor of living and non-living beings. Out of grace upon you I rescued you from the delusion. This Vaivaswatha, with my grace, shall create the new universe with the seeds that he has brought from the past manvanthara’. Saying thus, the fish disappeared. Vaivaswatha performed great tapas and started the new creation consisting of gods, demons, human beings and all animals and plants.
Markandeya concluded the story. ‘Oh, Yudhishtir, I have narrated the Matsya avatāra (incarnation of Vishnu as a fish) associated with Vaivaswatha manvantara. Those who narrate and who listen this story shall have their all wishes fulfilled and attain higher worlds’.  All Pandavas felt happy.

Understanding the first Story

The episode consists of two stories and while the first story is highly significant from political perspective, the second one is significant from historical and cosmological perspective.

On a casual reading of the first story, one may skip the significance of Atri praising the king as Vidhāta (creator Brahmā). There is a possibility to interpret his action as just a eulogy to get some charity from the king. Students of Political Science in their Masters’ Degree (MA), read a famous theory – The Divine Right Theory. In the evolution of political thought over centuries, the assertion of king over others was felt necessary to establish order in the society. The theory emphasized that the State was created by god and governed by his deputy who was the king. This trend was pronounced not only in India but all over the world. The Stuarts in England found refuge in the doctrine of Divine Right and James I was its leading exponent. In fact, James I wrote, ‘Kings are breathing images of god upon earth’. In France, Louis XIV of France (1643–1715) strongly promoted the theory to assert his powers over the people.

The western political thought was summarised in four basic points by A.C. Kapoor, 1975 [vi].
a.  Monarchy is hereditary
b.  Monarchy is divinely ordained, and king draws his authority from god.
c.  The king is answerable to god  
d.  Resistance to the law of the king is a sin.

While this was the picture, Indian seers were never willing to pass on absolute authority to the kings. No doubt, Atri praised the king as Vidhāta and eulogised him as Indra (the king of gods). But a careful reading of the story reveals that the king was given absolute authority tempered by the śāstra pramāṇās and dharma was sacrosanct. Even our śāstra pramāṇās go to the extent of beating a king to death if he abdicates his responsibility of protecting the people.

अहं वै रक्षितेत्युक्ता यो न रक्षति भूमिपः I
स संहत्या निहन्तव्य: श्वेन सोन्माद आतुरः ॥[vii]

(The king who comes to power by pledging that he would protect people, and thereafter fails to protect them, should be beaten up like wild dog and people should kill him).

The Indian political thought always advocated the principles of democracy and believed in the dictum:

Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely” – Acton.

The second important aspect of the first story is about vanaprastha. It is the third stage of human life, the first two being brahmacharya and grihasta. Hindu philosophy never forced people to abdicate household life (grihasta). One should abdicate grihasta and go for vanaprastha with or without wife after clearing all one’s responsibilities. When Atri suggested for going to forests, his wife was wise enough to advise him that he should ensure the well being of children before taking the decision. Women in Maha Bharata were not just an adjunct to husbands’ activities but vibrant participants in intellectual discussions. Moreover, the husbands were humble enough to respect their thoughts if they are in tune with dharma.

Understanding the second story

This story is significant from historical and cosmological perspective. According to Hindu philosophy as perceived by our rishis, the origin of this world is unknown The cosmos passes through cycles within cycles for all eternity. The basic cycle is kalpa which is a day for Brahmā.

Let us understand it in an easy way. According to our scriptures, the calculations go like this:

Satya yuga (Krita yuga) – 17,28,000 human years
Treta yuga              - 12,96.000 human years
Dvāpara yuga           -  8,64,000 human years
Kali yuga                -  4,32,000 human years

One Mahā yuga is the total of all the above four yugas.  Such thousand Mahā yugas constitute a kalpa which is a day for Brahmā. So also, the night for Brahmā. In one day of Brahmā, fourteen Manus create and rule the world. Thus, one Manvantaram constitute 33, 71, 42, 658 human years.

So far, six Manus have created and ruled the world afresh and they are Svāyabhuvu, Svārocia, Uttama, Tāmasa, Raivata, and Cākua. At present we are in Vaivaswatha manvantaram. Our daily rituals in traditional houses start with sankalpa - śubhe, śobhane muhūrte ādya brahmaa dvitīya prahārte sveta varāha kalpe vaivasvara manvatare etc and thus invoke the name of Vaivasvatha every day.

In Vaivasvatha Manvantara, we are in Kaliyaga of 28th Mahā yuga and this Kali yuga, according to tradition, started in 3102 B.C on which date Maha Bharata war had started (A.L.Basham, 1967)[viii].

In the current story, we have read the dissolution at the end of Cākua Manvantara and creation new Manvantara by Vaivasvata which was accompanied by a Great Flood. In Bible also we see the analogy of the great flood in Genesis 6:9–9:17. It says:

Noah was a righteous man and walked with God. Seeing that the earth was corrupt and filled with violence, God instructed Noah to build an ark in which he, his sons, and their wives, together with male and female of all living creatures, would be saved from the waters. Noah entered the ark in his six hundredth year, and on the 17th day of the second month of that year "the fountains of the Great Deep burst apart and the floodgates of heaven broke open" and rain fell for forty days and forty nights until the highest mountains were covered 15 cubits, and all earth-based life perished except Noah and those with him in the ark [ix].

But unlike Hindu cosmology, the Bible believed that the world was created by the God in 4004 B.C. He created the world for six days and took rest on the seventh day. A few Christian scholars from Christian community did not agree since the age of earth and other planets was more than thousands of years but they were persecuted initially. Perhaps the Cosmology developed by our rishis alone is close to the modern-day physics and astronomy.

The second important aspect of the story is about the first incarnation of Sri Vishnu in the form of a Fish. He retrieved Vedas from the waters when they were stolen by a demon, Hayagrīva and kept in waters. Among the ten incarnations of Vishnu, the incarnation as Fish is the first.

The third aspect about the story is its impact on other civilizations and cultures. The flood legend is there in Mesopotamia, Greek and a few other south east Asian nations. As mentioned earlier, the flood legend is found in the Bible as well.

Points to Ponder

1.  Discuss the four stages (āśramās) of human life.
2.  What is the status enjoyed by women in ancient India?
3.  What is Divine Right theory? Draw the distinction of its practice in India vis-à-vis the countries of the west.
4.  How do you justify that the cosmology developed in India was far ahead of the cosmology of other nations?
5.  Discuss the aspects of Manvantara.



Footnotes


[i] This story is taken from the Vana Parva of Maha Bharata written by Ved Vyasa.

[ii] Saptarshis – popularly known as seven Maha Rishis are Kasyapa, Atri, Bhardwaja, Viswamitra, Gautama, Jamadagi and Vasishta

[iii] ea vai paramo dharmo dharmavidbhirudāhta - Vana Parva 185.6.7

[iv]  brahma katrea sahita katra ca brahmaṇā saha।
sayuktau dahata śatrūnvanānīvāgnimārutau ॥ – Vana Parva 185.25

[v]  tato rājña pradhānatva śāstraprāmāṇyadarśanāt।
uttara siddhyate pako yena rājeti bhāṣitam ॥ - Vana Parva 185.31

[vi] Kapoor, A.C, 1975, ‘Principles of Political Science’, Edition 1975, page 82
[vii]  aha vai rakitetyuktā yo na rakati bhūmipa I
sa sahatyā nihantavya: śvena sonmāda ātura - anuśāsanika parva 61.33

[viii] Basham, A.L, 1967, ‘The wonder that was India’, Rupa Publications, page 323.

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