The previous two columns talked about violations of law often going unproved and unchecked because of the rampant practice of violating the spirit of law while establishing that the law is not broken because its letter has not been transgressed. I will talk here about mythological cases of God using this tactic to uphold righteousness or dharma.
Talking about law, the first and perhaps the only law of nature is change. There can be no constants in nature. For something to be constant in nature, it will have to not change over time. It will imply that time stands still vis-à-vis the constant. This will necessitate a transcendence of time, and, therefore, also of space. For there can be no spatial reality without a time coordinate. Neither can there be a time element without a corresponding spatial reality. So a constant in the natural world of space and time will demand a leap into something beyond space and time, which the mind is incapable of conceiving.
lo and behold, that’s a journey beyond nature into the supernatural, into the strata of the spirit. Don’t blame me for this. I don’t consciously try to bring in references to the spirit, they just happen in the course of my thinking. I have made an assertion that trespasses on the domain of science by talking about space and time. It is a zealously guarded preserve and I might look impudent and rash in having stepped on it. But I will impertinently hold on to my assertion and outline in my next column how science is coming along with me with all its unyielding rigour.
I come back to change lording over it all in nature, changing everything. Change means change of forms. It means the death of one thing after a lifespan and the birth of another in its place having a lifespan. This is going on all the time in nature. Inherent in it is mortality of every form that takes birth. The free spirit, called Atman by lord Krishna in The Gita, is not bound by any form, birth and mortality.
Immortality is available, but not as any form, not as any letter, but as spirit, as essence, as the core of everything. Those with ignorance created due to the eclipse of their understanding by ego seek immortality in letter, in the form of their physical body. Such seekers dot not just science fiction but the world of serious scientific research too. This quest is ageless.
Hindu mythology has many characters who sought immortality in their physical body, something that is impossible because the law of nature is change, and change means death of all that exists in nature. I will take two such examples, Ravana, the demon-king slayed by lord Rama, and Hiranyakashipu, another demon-king killed by lord Narasimha. Both the demons tried to violate the law of nature by asking lord Bramha, the God who creates, for the boon of immortality after propitiating him with austerities.
Bramha told them this boon was impossible to grant. After this denial, both the demons tried to catch the spirit of immortality in letters or words by using a lot of logic and reason to carefully frame a boon through which they thought mortality would be kept at bay. When they could not get immortality directly, they tried getting it indirectly by making their death impossible in all the ways they could conceive it could happen.
In seeking immortality, both wanted to be invincible, unassailable, unbounded, supreme — natural attributes of the spirit that are impossible to tie to any letter, any form. Becoming invincible in the form of their physical existence, they wanted supremacy over all. They wanted their writ to run over all. They wanted to be the law, the lord of all. Through all this, somewhere deep within they wanted to be God, the spirit of all.
A boon granted by God is a law which runs its course. It has the power to be true, to fructify. In that sense, god is a law-maker, a legislator. Ravana and Hiranyakashipu wanted to hijack the system and get a law passed by the supreme legislator that would make them supreme. When Ravana was refused immortality, he sought to fulfil his desire to be supreme by getting the boon that he would have supremacy over the Gods, heavenly spirits, demons, serpents and wild beasts. He did not ask for supremacy over human beings and monkeys as, proud of his prowess, he perceived no threat from them. He tried to capture the spirit of immortality in the letter of his boon.
Hiranyakashipu, like Ravana, crafted a legislation by way of his boon that he believed would make him immortal. Hiranyakashipu’s boon was that he could not be killed by any God, demigod, human, animal, demon, snake from the lower planets, living and non-living entity or weapon, in day or night, inside or outside a house, on earth or in the sky.
The language of these boons which became laws once they were granted is like the language of any law that seeks to bind spirit in letter, in words. Once the demons were refused immortality by God, they should have realised that mortality had to be their fate. But they thought they were very clever and could craftily word a decree enforced by divine will that prevented all the ways they perceived mortality could fell them.
God, who okayed the writ or legislation, was cleverer, or else he would not have been in the natural position from which he could rule the universe and make laws for it. The demons wanted to take the law in their hands by ingenious crafting of a legislation that tried to capture the spirit (immortality, supremacy, lordship, Godhood) in the letter (boon that said may I not be killed by this, this and this). God, the supreme lawmaker, the upholder of dharma or righteousness, knew a way around this trickery. He knew how a law can be upheld in letter and broken in spirit so that in the court of dharma it can be held that the law was entirely upheld, as a boon of a god should be.
Mortality came to Ravana and Hiranyakashipu. Ravana was killed by the combined might of lord Ram, a God in the human form, and lord Hanuman, a God in a monkey form. Hiranyakashipu was killed by lord Narasimha, a God in a part-human, part-animal form. He was killed at twilight (when it is neither day nor night) on the threshold of a courtyard (neither inside nor outside a house) on Narasimha’s lap (neither on earth nor in the sky) by his nails (not any weapon and neither living nor non-living).
Demons showed why they were demons. God showed why he is God. The law took its course, in letter and spirit, very benignly for once, putting everyone in their rightful place, keeping order intact in the universe.
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