Tomorrow, August 11, is Shravan Shivratri, an especially holy day. It’s more than the monthly observance of Shivratri, extra blessed because it occurs in the holy month of Shravan. Shravan Shivratri differs from Maha Shivratri in what each commemorates. Maha Shivratri, which occurred this February, celebrated the wedding of Shiva-Parvati. Shravan Shivratri commemorates how Mahadev drank the world-destroying poison that rose in the Samudra Manthan, the ‘Churning of the Milk Ocean’. Today, we identify the Kshirsagar or ‘Milk Ocean’ with the Bay of Bengal, based on our ancient name for it—Mahodadhi, meaning ‘Great Milky Ocean’, a name inspired by observing the force with which its white-topped waves strike our eastern seaboard.
We remember and thank Mahadev’s selflessness for drinking the Halahala or Kalakuta, the poison that arose from the ocean. There are striking modern resonances to this. One: that sometimes, we, too, have to swallow unpleasantness for the sake of a larger cause. However, since we are not gods but mere mortals, we are not required to endure it forever but can escape or seek justice. Mahadev is on our side in this.
Secondly, the more we mess with Nature, the more it rebounds on us. The Vish-purush (poison-person) or spirit of Kalakuta was sleeping peacefully at the bottom of the sea until he was disturbed by the churning. He wept in abject apology at Mahadev’s feet, pleading that he never meant to cause harm but was forced to emerge by the churning. Mahadev blessed him and promised him a chance to work off his inevitable karma. Lesser-known stories say that Vish-purush was reincarnated as Ashwatthama, though the Mahabharata does not say this. But the lesson remains, even sharper today.
Thirdly, Mahadev stands sky-high in Indian esteem for his complete selflessness. Not only did he drink the poison to save us and our world, but also, he did not want a single one of the many treasures that emerged from the Kshirsagar. The Adi Yogi is pure knowledge, and only wants our salvation as Taraknath, ‘Lord of the Great Crossing’ (death). One story goes that when the crescent moon appeared, Lord Vishnu insisted that Mahadev wear it as his particular ornament. So, he indulgently agreed, to pacify the chorus from both devas and asuras that he should accept a nicer token of this epochal event than just the poison turning his throat blue, stopped there by Parashakti herself—events immortalised in Indian names like ‘Neelkanth’, ‘Chandrasekhar’ and more.
Everybody in every skill, craft and trade possesses unique knowledge—our temples, for one, were built by master-craftsmen and sculptors. There are other fascinating outcomes in our history of how Mahadev bestows knowledge on humanity if we are receptive enough.
Consider this instance: Brahmagupta, the Indian mathematician and astronomer, lived between 598 and 668 CE. He was born in Bhinmal in Rajasthan’s Jalore district. Bhinmal, or Bhillamalla, was a great agricultural hub and the early capital of the Gurjara-Pratihara kingdom, comprising modern-day southern Rajasthan and northern Gujarat. It was visited and described in the seventh century by the Chinese traveller Xuanzang.
Not much is known about Brahmagupta’s personal life beyond what he reportedly discloses in his writing. His mathematical and astronomical treatise is called the Brahmasphuta Siddhanta, meaning ‘The Opening of the Universe’. It covers arithmetic, algebra, geometry and astronomy.
I’ve read that Brahmagupta made substantial contributions to arithmetic, including advancements in understanding zero and negative numbers, providing rules for calculating with them. He presented solutions to quadratic equations, including positive and negative roots. He introduced methods for solving linear and quadratic indeterminate equations.
His work in geometry included calculating the area of cyclic quadrilaterals. He provided a formula for the area of a cyclic quadrilateral in terms of its side lengths, known as Brahmagupta’s formula. Long before Isaac Newton defined gravity, Brahmagupta described an attractive force of the earth, using the term gurutvakarshan.
He wrote that it is the nature of Earth to attract and keep things, like how weighty objects fall to earth and water flows in place. He noted that the Earth is the same on all sides and people stand upright on it everywhere. In other words, he was not a flat-earther. Incidentally, the ancient Indian word for geography that is also the current Hindi word, is ‘bhugol’, meaning ‘round earth’.
Brahmagupta was an ardent Shaivite. His father’s name was Jishnugupta, and historical records note their strong adherence to Shaivism. His faith did not make him blindly superstitious; instead, it made him scientifically and mathematically aware, both mentally intuitive and proof-productive.
His work was carried westwards by the Arabs and reached Europe, deeply influencing modern mathematics and science. We understandably laughed at the more absurd claims of some uninformed politicians who made grandiose statements without proof. But while doing so, we may have failed to recognise those who are well worth recognising. Modern India, greatly dumbed down in self-knowledge by colonial education and years of secondhand ideological hostility to Indian heritage, has not told her own story well, either to herself or to the world.
But Mahadev remains, to save, inspire and illuminate, to remind us that we can do better. The turbulent waves of history could not dislodge him from millions of minds and hearts. He belongs to each one of us as our shared heritage. Shravan Shivratri is a glowing calendar opportunity to show that we remember and thank Mahadev for his compassion and light as the eternal well-wisher of humanity.
Renuka Narayanan | FAITHLINE | Senior journalist
(Views are personal)
(shebaba09@gmail.com)
