Devdutt Pattanaik: Beheading you, beheading me

Have you been noticing the rising number of politicians and religious leaders who seem obsessed with lopping off heads either their own or that of others Are they influenced by tales of headoffering that we find in the PuranasIt all starts with Rudra the fiercest form of Shiva who wrenches off the fifth head of Brahma that mouths profanities on seeing the Goddess The head or kapala sears into Shivas palm transforming him into Kapalika who has to wander the earth and find a place where he can rid himself of the head in his hand Liberation happens when he washes his hand in KashiIllustrationDevdutt PattanaikThe same theme is repeated when Virabhadra another form of Shiva beheads Daksha who insults Shiva causing Dakshas daughter and Shivas wife Sati to commit suicide In art the Bhairava form of Shiva is often shown as a cherubic child holding a human head in one hand or bedecked with a garland of skulls mundamalaIn folk traditions it is Bhairava himself who is beheaded by the Goddess as in the tale attached to Vaishno devi temple of Jammu for his persistent impertinence Bhairava apologises and so on the instructions of the Goddess his head becomes worthy of worshipThe Goddess herself in the form of Kali wears a string of male heads around her body As the Goddess Kotravai of Tamil literature associated with battlegrounds she accompanies Kartikeya the warlord son of Shiva There are many folk tales such as PatalaBhairavi and MalatiMadhava where tantrikas offer human sacrifice to Kali In Adbhuta Ramayana Mahiravana seeks to offer Rams head to KaliPerhaps the most powerful image of selfdecapitation is that of Chinnamastika the goddess of the cut head She beheads herself and the chopped head drinks the blood spurting out of her own severed neck She does this while seated on a copulating couple thus embodying the violence and sexual principles of natureThen there are tales where heroes vira who offer their head to a God or Goddess in order to display devotion or obtain fame In Tamil Mahabharata Aravan offers to be beheaded if it ensures victory of the Pandavas In the Mahabharata narrated in the Rajasthan area Barbarika or the son of Bhima offers his head to Krishna to enable victory for the Pandavas In both these tales the hero asks that his bodiless head be placed on a vantage spot either a mountain top or a tree from where he can see the battle at KurukshetraThe idea of a vira offering his own head to Durga is popular theme in calendar art In the early 20th century this metamorphosed into patriots offering their head to Bharat Mata literally on a plate This is an inversion of the European tale of Thugees While Western novelists popularised the myth of Indian thugs beheading unsuspecting travellers and offering their heads to Kali the nationalist writers countered it by speaking of patriots who offer their own heads as martyrs in the service of the motherlandThese tales can be taken symbolically as sacrifice of pride or ego Or perhaps they are visual indicators of occult tantrik rituals that involved human skulls But many love to take them literally These include BollywoodHollywood filmmakers who love to show the macabre side of India as well as religious radicals whose political masters have valourised and glamourised bloodlust perhaps mimicking the global vocabulary of religious and statesponsored terrorismThe author writes and lectures on the relevance of mythology in modern times Reach him at devduttdevduttcom