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Skanda
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- The
story of the war god of Hindu Mythology is fascinating for many reasons. To
begin with, his commonest name, Skanda, has been almost forgotten today
after having been in worship for over two millennia. The many
interpretations, the multiple origin stories and the wildly conflicting
accounts of his life and exploits that are found all over India are, in a
sense, reflective of the process of Hinduism itself. Under the vast umbrella
named for convenience, Hinduism, shelter a multitude of faiths and sects and
philosophies. Skanda's popularity, his absorption into the official
pantheon as opposed to his previous folk status, and the sudden decline in
his all-India popularity to once again being a local area god, are all
typical stages of this sheltering process.
Skanda began his existence at a very early stage of Indian history. He seems
to have been a popular war god who lived on forested hills, was fond of
hunting and fighting and with an appetite for blood sacrifices. He was
young, handsome and a fire-eating, spear-wielding bravo. This basic template
went by many names in different parts of the country. In Maharashtra he was
called Khandoba, and in vast areas of the south of India, the god was known
as Malaikilavon, the Lord of the hills in ancient Tamil. His other name was
Murugan. Indeed that is what he is still known as, and worshipped, where his
worship has survived. The Indologist Hardy had a theory that Murugan worship
under different names was popular in the folk religion of the North of India
too. He was supported in this by Parpola, who spent a long time attempting
to decipher the script of the Indus valley. Parpola came to the conclusion
that Murugan was a deity of the Indus valley culture, and that the very name
Murugan is to be found in the language! While this is not a popularly
accepted view, the reason it could be put forward is the uncontested
antiquity of Skanda worship. If the Indus civilization theory proves true,
then Skanda is at least five thousand years old. In Maharashtra the
assimilative forces of High Culture could not force Khandoba out so easily
and he remained an independent god, albeit recognized as an avatar of Shiva.
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- As
long as Vedic India was satisfied with its fire sacrifices and endless
liturgies, it turned up its nose at popular manifestations of belief. But
with the shock of Buddhism and Jainism forcing them to compete for the
allegience of the faithful, the hitherto despised geographical and folk gods
were absorbed into the mainstream in an act of instinctive wisdom. It is my
belief that the entire Pauranic worldview is an offshoot of this process.
The faith had shifted and new gods were reigning, but the guardians of the
faith needed to reassure people that nothing had really changed. Hence
the vast mythological outpourings that ensued. These stories were designed
to fit the newly popular gods - (to the priests not to the people!) - into a
nominally Vedic and Upanishadic framework. At about the sixth century,
the situation stabilized and most of the mythology was firmly in place,
though perhaps not formally written down as yet. The great gods dominant in
the Indian mind were Shiva, Vishnu and his avatars, Brahma, The Great
Goddess, Surya the sun, and Skanda. Ganapati and Laxmi were fighting a
battle they would win to become more popular, but these were early days and
no money was being placed on them. By the twelfth century however, Brahma
was nowhere on the scene, Surya's worship was seeing a deceptive flourish in
art and architecture before it would be catastrophically extinguished and
Skanda was retreating to enclaves of worship in the states of Orissa, Bengal
and parts of south India, predominantly Tamil Nadu. By then however, Skanda
had been accepted as the son of Shiva, and his myths had become an enduring
part of the Indian imagination.
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- It
is interesting that most of the myths of Skanda deal with the vexed question of
his parentage. No other figure in mythology has so many claimants for that
status. Success indeed has many fathers, and in Skanda's case mothers too -
eight in the most popular version the origin story! The many claimants for
his parentage indicate his immense importance for rival sects, who needed the
hill warrior's popularity to bolster their numbers. The Ganapati worshippers
alone took an antagonistic stand when it was their time to bask in the sun, they
never could forgive Skanda his head start in popularity. The Jains and Buddhists
had no stories about Skanda as they did about the Vedic deities; he was too
violent for them. The Mahabharatha seems to have the first version of his
origin, though the Ramayana has a little section that covers familiar ground
too.
The Mahabharatha version tries to position Skanda within the ambit of Vedic
Deities, unlike the other versions, which are Pauranic in nature. As usual the
devas or gods were under threat from demonic forces. A new hero was required to
deal with the problem, as the demons were immune to the old powers that be. Agni,
God of Fire, goes to some great sages, to ask them to perform a sacrifice that
will give him such a son. They are immersed in some sacrifice of their own and
Agni has to wait. Being impatient by nature and of a fiery temperament, he pays
more attention to the beautiful wives of the rishis, and is seized with desire
for them.
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