Mahābhārata contains several small stories or events of the past, some of them appearing strange to comprehend. A common thread through such weird stories pertains to bizarre characters, odd behaviour of saintly people and unnatural or abnormal relationship issues that continue to be remembered till date or picked out selectively from the texts to debase the texts and the characters in those events. We tend to interpret them in our own way, with our own perceptions, while being unaware of the original line of thought supposed to have been delivered through those events.
One
such story contains directives on how to interpret seemingly odd descriptions
and the characters of the story, which offer remarkable understanding of the
story when applied. Amazingly, the decoding of that story on such lines reveal
that it was actually talking about migration of people from North to South of
the equator in a distant past when the North was reeling under severe shortage
of food due to climate change. The fundamental clue on understanding the story
rests with the etymology of the proper nouns used in the story – of the
Sanskrit names – and connecting them with the characterization of the people
and the events in the story.
This
story appears in Chapter
94 and Chapter 95
of Book 13 of the Mahābhārata. The translation in English can be read HERE. The central
characters are the seven Rishi-s (sages) who govern mankind from their
celestial abode in the seven stars of Ursa Major (Sapta rishi Mandala). As per
Hindu Thought the rishi-s keep changing in each era following a change in
mankind and their way of life. Figure 1 shows the location of the seven rishi-s
of the current era. They are Marici, Vasishtha, Angirasa, Atri, Pulastya, Pulaha
and Kratu.
Additionally, the name Arundhati also appears. She is the wife of Vasishtha who accompanies him from behind. The stars Alcor and Mizar represent Arundhati and Vasishtha as they were never seen away from each other; more importantly Alcor was never seen overtaking Mizar, in the same way that Arundhati was never known to have gone in front of her husband Vasishtha but towed behind him. For this reason, invoking Arundhati as a symbol of an ideal wife who doesn’t cross the path of her husband is part and parcel of Vedic marriages even today.
Fig 1: The seven sages
of the Saptarishi Mandala for the current period
Interestingly,
the same names of the seven sages do not appear in the story under discussion
thereby revealing that it was about a previous era when different set of
rishi-s governed mankind. Their names as they appear in the story are Atri,
Vasishtha, Kashyapa, Bharadwaja, Gautama, Vishwamitra and Jamadagni.
Atri
and Vasishtha have remained in the group of that time. Additionally, Arundhati’s
name also appears in the story as a devout wife following Vasishtha, thereby
indicating the fixed alignment between Alcor and Mizar even in those times.
The
story talks about the shift of the seven sages due to famine conditions. The story
happened at a time of severe drought when the seven
rishi-s, the chaste wife Arundhati, their
maid servant, Ganda and her husband Paśusakha were struggling to get food. The first horrendous
information of the story appears here where it is said that they decided to cook
the dead prince, the son of Śibi’s son whom they
received in a sacrifice, to satiate their hunger!
As
they began cooking the dead body in a vessel, the dead person’s grandfather, Śibi
(Vrishadarbha’a son) appeared there and offered to remove their hunger by giving
them cattle. The sages refused to accept the kine and left the place without
eating the dead one they were cooking. Seeing them leave, the king got angry
and invoked a demoness, he named as Yātudāni, to follow the sages and slay
them. But he sounds a caveat that Yātudāni must first ask for their names and comprehend the meaning of their names; only
after understanding the etymology of their names, can she slay them. This odd stipulation
comes up as a valuable clue to decipher
the story.
Śibi is a plant growing in Northern latitudes
The
story starts with Śibi whose son’s son was cooked by the sages for eating. Śibi
is the Sanskrit term for the plant Typha
angustifolia, which grows abundantly
in high Northern latitudes such as Siberia and Scandinavia.
Fig 2: Typha augustifolia
(Śibi)
It
grows where there is water. The entire plant is edible. But a time came when
this plant could no longer grow due to climatic changes. The narration about
sages preparing to eat the dead son of Śibi’s son shows that times were so bad
that people were left with nothing but the dead and dried Śibi plants to eat. I
locate the place of this plant in the narration at Altai mountains where
Denisovan gene was discovered from a fragment of a bone. Let me justify this in
the course of this write-up.
The
sages were offered kine which they refused, as they didn't want to subsist on
flesh. They started moving in search of food and met a mendicant accompanied with
his dog on their way. This man was called as 'Śunasakha'
which means 'friend of dog'. In Hindu Thought the dog signifies Yama, the God
of death. He is also the God of Dharma who delivers good and bad according to
one’s karma. The dog appearing well-fed would literally mean that many people
had died and the dogs had scavenged on the dead people. As a personification of
Yama, it can be deduced that God Yama appeared robust in having delivered fair
judgement. But who was his friend – the Sakha of Śuna? We will decipher it in the
course of the story.
The
dog and Śunasakha accompanied the sages in their wanderings in finding food. At
last, all of them reached a Lotus-pond. That
pond was guarded by Yātudāni, the demoness sent by Śibi, the king. Yātu means
wind. Yātudāni denotes a state of heavy winds afflicting people. Coming from drought-struck
Śibi’s land, it seems to indicate cold winds blowing from that region that was
reeling under lack of sunlight and water. Now that Yātudāni was located in the
region of lotus-pond, it could refer to the limit or boundary of the cold and
dry winds.
The
presence of lotus pond indicates a changed climatic condition where water was available.
The lotus planet, like Śibi is completely edible. So, the sages had at last
reached a humid place where food was
available. Yātudāni stopped the rishi-s who wanted gather the lotus-stalks from
the pond for eating. She demanded that they tell the meaning of their names. One
by one the sages started telling the meaning of their names, but Yātudāni could
not comprehend any of the names!
The
demoness could not understand the meaning of Arundhati, Ganda and Paśusakha
too. Arundhati means the one who never obstructs.
She expressed that meaning by saying that she always stayed by the side of her husband.
Ganda described the meaning as the raised portion of the cheek. By getting
associated with Paśusakha as her
husband, it is understood that Ganda refers to ‘raised
grass land for grazing’. Paśusakha means ‘friend
of cattle’.
All
these are connected with a community of householders who depended on simple
country life and cattle wealth. Ganda and
Paśusakha joining the sages in Śibi’s land shows that the region was dotted with
raised land where cattle could be grown but had to be abandoned due to dry conditions.
The sages and others were spared by the demoness as she could not understand
the etymological meaning of their names and she was subsequently killed by Śunasakha
(friend of dog). This is indicative of cessation of adverse wind patterns that
afflicted people all the way from Śibi’s land.
The
sages collected the lotus stalks for eating, but these stalks were stolen by Śunasakha.
Ultimately it turned out that Śunasakha was Vāsava (Indra, the lord of people)
who guides and protects people. He followed the entourage of sages to help them
avoid un-agreeable foods and reach a place conducive for living. His stature as
Indra, the ruler of mankind, has made him appear robust and well-fed. The deity
of Dharma (Yama) was his constant friend and therefore he was Śunasakha. The
story ends with the departure of Indra and the seven sages to their respective
celestial abodes. People had started their routine life in the new place dotted
with lotus ponds.
Migration from Śibi to lotus regions
The
derivations from this narration are that two plants mark the two locations of
human settlements. The two plants namely Śibi (Typha angustifolia) and lotus
are complete foods. Even in times of starvation, people had managed to subsist
on these two plants. Lotus is consumed in places like China and Thailand but it
grows well in Vietnam. All parts of the plant are entirely consumed by the Vietnamese.
Fig 3: Lotus lakes in
Vietnam
Source: https://vietnamtrips.com/vietnamese-lotus-flower
Lotus
is indigenous to the Tropics in and around Sundaland. Taking this as a cue, I am locating
the region of Typha angustifolia to the north of China because that makes an
easy route for people to have migrated northward or southward during times of
distress. The northern most location for Typha angustifolia in this stretch is
Altai Mountains! The lotus growing Vietnam formed the southern location of migration
Fig 4: The North
and South limits of the migration
Since
there is evidence of Denisovan genes found in Altai (Here)
connected with Australian aborigines (Here)
and also of Papuans and Pacific
islanders (Here) it is
possible to deduce that a former migration had occurred in this corridor - from
Australia to Sundaland to China to Altai.
The
narration in Mahābhārata is about a southward migration through the same
corridor when North became inhospitable and South was warm and wet. This could
have happened during Glacial Maximum and Minimum periods, with migrants finally
settling down in regions around Sundaland. The old memory transmitted through
generations in the form of a simple story can be picked out by means of the
clue given in that story itself – that etymology plays a great role in unlocking
the secrets hidden in those stories.
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