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The story of the war god of Hindu Mythology is fascinating for many reasons. To
begin with, his commonest name, Skanda, has been almost forgotten today after having
been in worship for over two millennia. The many interpretations, the multiple origin
stories and the wildly conflicting accounts of his life and exploits that are found
all over India are, in a sense, reflective of the process of Hinduism itself. Under
the vast umbrella named for convenience, Hinduism, shelter a multitude of faiths
and sects and philosophies. Skanda's popularity, his absorption into the official
pantheon as opposed to his previous folk status, and the sudden decline in his all-India
popularity to once again being a local area god, are all typical stages of this
sheltering process.
Skanda began his existence at a very early stage of Indian history. He seems to
have been a popular war god who lived on forested hills, was fond of hunting and
fighting and with an appetite for blood sacrifices. He was young, handsome and a
fire-eating, spear-wielding bravo. This basic template went by many names in different
parts of the country. In Maharashtra he was called Khandoba, and in vast areas of
the south of India, the god was known as Malaikilavon, the Lord of the hills in
ancient Tamil. His other name was Murugan. Indeed that is what he is still known
as, and worshipped, where his worship has survived. The Indologist Hardy had a theory
that Murugan worship under different names was popular in the folk religion of the
North of India too. He was supported in this by Parpola, who spent a long time attempting
to decipher the script of the Indus valley. Parpola came to the conclusion that
Murugan was a deity of the Indus valley culture, and that the very name Murugan
is to be found in the language! While this is not a popularly accepted view, the
reason it could be put forward is the uncontested antiquity of Skanda worship. If
the Indus civilization theory proves true, then Skanda is at least five thousand
years old. In Maharashtra the assimilative forces of High Culture could not force
Khandoba out so easily and he remained an independent god, albeit recognized as
an avatar of Shiva.
As long as Vedic India was satisfied with its fire sacrifices and endless liturgies,
it turned up its nose at popular manifestations of belief. But with the shock of
Buddhism and Jainism forcing them to compete for the allegience of the faithful,
the hitherto despised geographical and folk gods were absorbed into the mainstream
in an act of instinctive wisdom. It is my belief that the entire Pauranic worldview
is an offshoot of this process. The faith had shifted and new gods were reigning,
but the guardians of the faith needed to reassure people that nothing had really
changed. Hence the vast mythological outpourings that ensued. These stories were
designed to fit the newly popular gods - (to the priests not to the people!) - into
a nominally Vedic and Upanishadic framework. At about the sixth century,
the situation stabilized and most of the mythology was firmly in place, though perhaps
not formally written down as yet. The great gods dominant in the Indian mind were
Shiva, Vishnu and his avatars, Brahma, The Great Goddess, Surya the sun, and Skanda.
Ganapati and Laxmi were fighting a battle they would win to become more popular,
but these were early days and no money was being placed on them. By the twelfth
century however, Brahma was nowhere on the scene, Surya's worship was seeing a deceptive
flourish in art and architecture before it would be catastrophically extinguished
and Skanda was retreating to enclaves of worship in the states of Orissa, Bengal
and parts of south India, predominantly Tamil Nadu. By then however, Skanda had
been accepted as the son of Shiva, and his myths had become an enduring part of
the Indian imagination.
It is interesting that most of the myths of Skanda deal with the vexed question
of his parentage. No other figure in mythology has so many claimants for that status.
Success indeed has many fathers, and in Skanda's case mothers too - eight in the
most popular version the origin story! The many claimants for his parentage indicate
his immense importance for rival sects, who needed the hill warrior's popularity
to bolster their numbers. The Ganapati worshippers alone took an antagonistic
stand when it was their time to bask in the sun, they never could forgive Skanda
his head start in popularity. The Jains and Buddhists had no stories about Skanda
as they did about the Vedic deities; he was too violent for them. The Mahabharatha
seems to have the first version of his origin, though the Ramayana has a little
section that covers familiar ground too.
The Mahabharatha version tries to position Skanda within the ambit of Vedic Deities,
unlike the other versions, which are Pauranic in nature. As usual the devas or gods
were under threat from demonic forces. A new hero was required to deal with the
problem, as the demons were immune to the old powers that be. Agni, God of Fire,
goes to some great sages, to ask them to perform a sacrifice that will give him
such a son. They are immersed in some sacrifice of their own and Agni has to wait.
Being impatient by nature and of a fiery temperament, he pays more attention to
the beautiful wives of the rishis, and is seized with desire for them. He makes
obvious overtures, which they ignore. This however, is all the opportunity needed
for a minor female goddess called Svaha, who has been lusting in her heart after
Agni. She assumes the forms of the wives and seduces Agni six times in succession.
Each time his fiery seed is too hot for her to retain within herself, so she carries
it to Mount Sveta and places it in a golden pot in a place well concealed by Sara
reeds. Within this obviously symbolic womb the seed is born as Subrahmanya or Skanda.
In six days he is fully-grown, and he has six heads for each one of the forms assumed
by Svaha. On the sixth day this young hero is presented
all the weapons of the gods and he routs the demons in an exciting battle. Thereupon
he becomes the permanent warlord of the gods. He also gets Svaha married to Agni
and decrees that all offerings into the sacred fire be accompanied by the pronouncing
of her name. This is a very obvious later interpolation by a morally scandalized
writer. The incantation of "Svaha" is as old as the Vedas and their rituals. This
version still tries to proclaim the (now in doubt) superiority of the sacrificial
ritual - even peripheral events round a sacrifice becomes cosmically significant.
The ambivalent and at times openly hedonistic sexuality of the story becomes a motif
of all later Skanda myths. Skanda is described variously as an extremely promiscuous
young man, a protector of young women from abduction, a lifelong celibate, a happily
married man, or a dandy verging on being a rake. Obviously the god served as a proxy
for all the attitudes to sexuality that ever became popular in India. In the south
he is married, with Sena and Valli as his two wives. That really does not say anything,
as Sena means army and Valli is a personification of the Vel or lozenge shaped spear
that he uses. They represent his essential nature as a warrior more than any real
human women do. In Orissa and Bengal there is an interesting folk version
as to why Karttikeya or Skanda is a bachelor. His mother, Parvati, wife of Shiva
asked him what kind of girl he wanted to marry. His reply was, "A girl who
is as beautiful as you." Appalled at the obvious Oedipal connotations of this statement
she 'blessed' him with perpetual celibacy.
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