GEORGI KRASTEV
EPHE Paris / University of Vienna gkrustev@yahoo.com
DIVINE VISION (DIVYACAKṢUS), ORACULAR HEARING (UPAŚRUTI) AND THE POWER OF YOGA AND SPLENDOUR: EVIDENCE OF ARCHAIC RITUAL ELEMENTS WITHIN TWO STORIES FROM THE UDYOGA– (13–15) AND THE ANUŚĀSANAPARVAN (41,1–35)
As with the famous account of Yoganidrā in the Mārkaṇḍeyapurāṇa, many Indian mythological narratives hold particular moralistic teachings, social conventions, cultural values, and occasional footprints of a more archaic (or more vernacular) reality which the Brahmanical world view most certainly disapproved of, but which, ironically, survived through serving the purpose of providing good contrast to the values, conduct and morals which Brahmanical culture strove to promote. Such is also the case of two stories from the Udyoga– (13–15) and the Anuśāsanaparvan (41,1-35), where Indra is cast as both victim and villain, and both of which preach the values of being faithful in matrimony in the face of external pressure. Despite these moralistic overtones, however, the powers, conduct and plot of the stories betray a ritual and conceptual reality where power over others, paralysing them, entering their bodies, becoming invisible or seeing into the Unseen World of higher or hidden levels of reality is both possessed by particular divine personages, but also obtainable by those who are virtuous through the power of yoga and tapas. In the Udyogaparvan narrative, the yogin Vipularestrains Devaśarman’s beautiful wife Rucī from succumbing to Indra’s advances by essentially possessing her body and mind, then frightens Indra with his yogic tejas, reprimands him and treats him like nothing but a pesky incubus or a bhūta. Thanks to this feat, in fact, Devaśarman is later capable of walking through the deserted forest with his wife without fear—the very same forest that is the usual abode of vighnas, yakṣas, bhūtas, piśācas, and grahas, and which, in another context, is a favourite place for tantric rituals and practice. In the Anuśāsanaparvan the roles are reversed and Indra is the “victim”. The evil Nahuṣa has claimed his place as king of the gods and wishes to claim Indra’s wife Śacī as well. Despite the overall Brahmanical flavour of the narrative, Śacī does not manage to find her husband through regular means, even other gods cannot help her. It should not, then, go unnoticed, that it is not śruti that leads Śacī to find her hidden husband in a secret maṇḍala-esque hideout on an island in a lake beyond the Himalayas, but her appeal is heard by the curious personification of the power of an oracular voice—the goddess Upaśruti. This becomes all the more curious when august voices such as Varāhamihira outright condemns upaśruti as one among a number of practices a daivavit should not take seriously.