blah blah blah

 

Envy Kills: A Story of Two Brothers: Aravasu and

Paravasu

Adapted from the Mahabharata by Col K M Harikrishnan with illustrations by Aparna U.

(With gratitude to Sir C Rajagopalachari and admiration to Girish Karnad)

Introduction:
The story of Aravasu and Paravasu has a great sense of appeal to me. It is a classic tale of how envy, ego, and hasty conclusions can lead to sadness for everyone.

This story features in the Mahabharata, that ultimate fount of parables. The Pandavas roamed from place to place during their period of exile. They met with many learned rishis in their hermitages, and picked up lessons in good conduct – something that would stand them in good stead in the future. In Rajaji’s version of Mahabharata, there are many such gems. And quite a few of those gems were polished to a great level of beauty by Girish Karnad, playwright extraordinaire. He used the stories to illustrate human frailty in our times – by incorporating additional characters when needed, but without in any way distorting the original version or its message. I think that underscores Karnad’s genius, for which he richly deserved the Jnanpith Award. His play “The Fire and the Rain” (which was made into a brilliant Bollywood movie titled “Agni Varsha”) is a masterpiece. One needs to know the original story to appreciate the brilliance of Karnad’s play. I am therefore going to narrate the original first, and point out the changes he incorporated to great effect in his play. A YouTube link to the movie is given at the end.

Aravasu and Paravasu were sons of Raibhya, a learned rishi living in a forest by the banks of river Ganga in the Himalayas. Paravasu was the elder, but Aravasu is our protagonist! There was another great rishi called Bharadwaja in the neighbourhood. He had an only son, Yavakri. This boy was jealous of Aravasu and Paravasu, as they had already become experts at Vedas and other scriptures, and were getting a lot of attention from the local King Brihadyumna. Yavakri had not bothered to learn the Vedas. He decided to take a shortcut: he did severe penance to invoke Indra, the Lord of the gods, and asked him to make him an expert in Vedas and scriptures overnight! Indra laughed at this request and told him that knowledge could only be acquired by study, not by practising austerities. But Yavakri would not listen. He continued to do very severe penance. Now, the gods were obliged to take notice of people doing penance to invoke their grace – I guess it is comparable to modern day courts having to take notice of a petition being submitted again and again to them. Indra returned, and again advised Yavakri to take the right path to knowledge – namely, study and hard work. But Yavakri persisted, and wore Indra down to the point where the latter granted him the boon of learning, whereby Yavakri could assimilate knowledge fast. He set to mastering the Vedas and achieved his goal rather quickly. All this while, his goal was to put one above rishi Raibhya and his sons, more than become a learned man himself. We can see many Yavakris in our midst – those who try to outsmart classmates by learning a few tricks here and there to score marks and get brownie points! But do they really benefit from all this cunning? Only time will tell, right?



Yavakri envying the brothers Aravasu and Paravasu



Unable to bear the attention given by the King to the brothers, Yavakri does severe penance and invokes Lord Indra

Invariably, such people like Yavakri have other bad characteristics as well! Our man was fond of a girl called Vishakha. Nothing wrong with that, except that she was already married to Paravasu. Yavakri’s story is not only about taking shortcuts to knowledge, it is also about the crime of lust. Young Vishakha was beautiful, and our Yavakri had rather recently become a “learned” man, with the kind of arrogance and self-importance that comes with it. He thought nothing of Vishakha’s marital status, and violated her one day. This horrible act set a whole whirlwind of events in place.

Even we ordinary people can often guess when someone known to us is sad or suffering. When Vishakha returned home, the learned rishi Raibhya guessed something was terribly wrong. When he found out the reason, he was overcome with rage. The interesting thing about rishis and others who do Tapasya is that they gain a lot of power over years of such penance. They could use such accumulated power to curse a person and bring about hardships to befall their victims. But usually, they did not misuse their power. In this instance, however, outraged by the heinous crime Yavakri had perpetrated, Raibhya lost his cool, so to speak, and summoning all his power, created two beings: a very attractive female form and a cruel male rakshasa. He commanded them to go and kill Yavakri. Raibhya must have known that using up all his power like this would set him back by many years in his Tapasya, but I suppose he thought the punishment – for Yavakri and for himself – was worth it.

We have to remember that Yavakri was a powerful rishi of sorts himself, now. He could therefore have warded off any rakshasa easily with his own powers. But here is the catch: for repelling a rakshasa created for the express purpose of killing him, Yavakri would have to use his powers by using appropriate mantras. And reciting such powerful mantras needed sprinkling holy water on the target. Yavakri of course had his sacred vessel – called Kamandalam – always with him, brimming with holy water. This was the reason why Raibhya created the beautiful female form. For he must have correctly guessed that Yavakri would give in to his lust again – as he had done when he took advantage Vishakha.

The inevitable happened: Yavakri saw a very pretty girl, and thought, well, why not? And he put his kamandalam down. The female created by Raibhya knew her orders well. At the first available moment, she ran away with the sacred vessel and poured out the holy water. The male rakshasa moved in for the kill at that very moment, and Yavakri paid for his foolishness with his life!



Upset by Vishakha's grief, Rishi Raibhya creates two rakshasas, one to distract Yavakri and the other to kill him

If you are wondering why we have been talking about Yavakri in a story about Aravasu and Paravasu, wait, there is more to this story!

Yavakri’s life may have ended, but he had set in motion a series of tragedies. His father, rishi Bharadwaja, was understandably very fond of his only son. He had repeatedly warned Yavakri that he should not stray from the path of righteousness. He had also cautioned his son from being disrespectful to Raibhya, a revered, and powerful rishi in his own right. Yet, when he came to know of Yavakri’s death, his emotions got the better of him. He did not stop to question Yavakri’s horrible act of lusting for another man’s wife. All he cared to find out was how he had died. And hearing about the rakshasa demon, hastily concluded that Raibhya was responsible for his son’s death (which was partially true). He summoned his own considerable powers and cursed Raibhya, his friend of many moons. Since Raibhya had taken away his only son, Bharadwaja cursed that Raibhya would also be killed by his own son. Soon, though, wisdom dawned on him and he realised what a big mistake he had made in cursing Raibhya thus. It was not possible for him to revoke this curse; and he had lost his beloved son. Rishi Bharadwaja decided that there was no purpose in his life anymore. Sad and forlorn, he cremated Yavakri and joined his son in the funeral pyre. In this way, Yavakri became responsible for one more death, even after he had himself died.

But more tragedy was to happen. One of the reasons for Yavakri’s envy of the Raibhya brothers was that they had been commissioned by King Brihadyumna to do a yagna for invoking the gods for rain (the land had been starved of rain for many years in a row). The king had inadvertently snubbed Rishi Bharadwaja by not asking him to preside over the yagna as the chief priest. May be that was one of the reasons he set after Vishakha, who knows? Definitely, the brothers being away most of the time at the King’s palace for the yagna must have contributed to his bravado.

Paravasu was very learned, no doubt. But mere knowledge does not make one a good person! Often, the more knowledge we acquire, the more conceited, more arrogant, we become. Paravasu was the chief priest at the yagna meant to put an end to the long drought that had ravaged the kingdom. That must have gone to his head too. Despite the recent events, he was still deeply attracted to his beautiful wife. Breaking the usual traditions of officiating at a yagna, he decided one evening to visit his wife. But as he approached his father’s hermitage, he saw some movement in the poor lighting around his living quarters. One does not know what he made of that movement. Did he think it was some animal? Or someone else like Yavakri? Acting in haste, he threw a weapon in his hand with full force at the intruder. When he came close to the victim, he was horrified to see that it was his father – probably returning home after his evening ablutions – that he had killed! Yavakri had struck again, and proved his father’s curse! This was a totally unwanted, unexpected, and very untimely death!

Paravasu was in a quandary. Here he was, with his father’s blood on his hands, in the middle of an extremely prestigious assignment as the chief priest of an important yagna! What was he to do now? Motivated by remorse, but encouraged by his elder brother status – and possibly thinking that his knowledge was superior to Aravasu’s, he summoned his younger brother. Explaining the unfortunate circumstances, he ordered his younger brother to help him. He declared that as chief priest, it was his duty to go back to the yagna, despite being “unclean” because of killing a human being (that it was his own father was even more horrible). As per custom, one cannot take part in a yagna after a death in the family – leave alone when one was additionally responsible for the death. He ordered his younger brother to do the last rites for their father, and atone for his (Paravasu’s) sin.

Aravasu, the more humane of the two brothers, saw the reasoning behind his elder brother’s order. He dutifully agreed to do the needful. We do not quite know what Vishakha thought of all this (But Girish Karnad knew!). But Paravasu did go back, and poor Aravasu cremated his father, and returned to the palace to join the yagna. Paravasu was understandably reeling under a lot of guilt. But as often happens, he decided to take the easy way out. He reasoned with himself – he had not knowingly killed his father, it was a case of mistaken identity. Besides, Aravasu was the one doing the cremation and last rites, so he had indirectly taken on the full responsibility for their father’s death. But most important, if he even as much as acknowledged his father’s death, he would be answerable for continuing the yagna despite a death in the family. Perhaps he thought he was looking at the larger good at stake – the invoking of rain gods for the sake of the entire land and its peoples. Whatever the justification, he cast one look at his brother, who was still in the attire typical of people returning from performing last rites, and declared that Aravasu should not be allowed to enter the yagna hall! What is more, he suggested that his brother may have made some grave mistake, such as kill a fellow human being, which made him totally unworthy of sitting in on a yagna. People readily believed him. Paravasu was there at the yagna, wasn’t he? Why hadn’t Aaravasu come to the hall before doing the cremation? Surely he ought to have informed his older, more learned brother? He definitely should not be allowed anywhere near the yagna!




Paravasu orders Aravasu to do the last rites for their father, but then refuses Aravasu to join the yagna


Imagine Aravasu’s shock! Here he was, an obedient younger brother, saddened by his father’s death, yet willing to cover up for his elder brother’s mistake (even in his disappointment, the good Aravasu accepted that his elder brother had not committed a wilful murder), but was now being denied his right to take part in the yagna on false grounds. What an irony of fate! He was beside himself with sadness. He had just lost his revered father, and now his brother had banished him as “unclean”. Worse, he had had severe aspersions cast on his very character. When he tried to explain, the priests would not listen. The palace guards beat him up and threw him out–they were not going to allow an “unclean” priest to destroy their chances of escaping the long drought. Overcome with unbearable grief, he left the palace and went off to the forest to meditate and do penance.

A good man knows when he is beaten. But he also knows and understands the circumstances of his defeat. Someone with a half-baked knowledge of Vedas and scriptures, like Yavakri, would have fought tooth and nail for his rightful place in the yagna. Someone like Paravasu, despite all his “knowledge”, was proving that he had studied, but not learnt anything in the process. What was the use of such knowledge? There is no virtue in such outward show of knowledge if one does not practice it with full commitment in one’s own life. Such knowledge is nothing more than tinsel. So thinking, the truly enlightened and virtuous Aravasu decided to forgive and forget. He took to prayers and contemplation of the Supreme Being, away from the scene of all the tragedy. Pleased with his goodness, the gods themselves came to him and offered him boons. What did he want, they asked? Proving once again his superior nature, he simply asked for his father’s life to be restored and his brother be forgiven for his sins. The gods, pleased with his unselfish requests, granted the boons and brought rains as well, for the benefit of the entire society.



Despite being short-changed by his elder brother, Aravasu follows the righteous path, and thus gets his father back

Moral of the story: Envy, anger, excessive love for one’s progeny, and hasty decisions, all bring death and destruction in their wake, causing untold misery for all.

Enter, Girish Karnad, with his uncanny ability to see beyond the story.

He cleverly entwines a caste element to the story, to speak out against one of modern day’s worst evils–discrimination based on one’s station in life. He drives home the folly of jealousy by adding a plausible change in the storyline: we learnt that Paravasu was the chief priest for an extremely important yagna, right? But what about Rishi Bharadwaja, and his own father Rishi Raibhya? His superceding the seniors thus could surely have ruffled a few feathers in these otherwise learned men? And in the end, Karnad wraps up everything nicely to please even the scientist in all of us. In deference to the genius of Karnad, I have merely mentioned the areas he has modified in the original story, without adding any spoilers. His play in English is a masterpiece, and worth reading. I hope I have insinuated enough intrigue to goad the reader to at least see the movie! Here is the link.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a0ViSXR37Vo&t=6s&ab_channel=B4UAflam



And here is the link to purchasing the play (paperback): https://www.amazon.in/Fire-Rain-Karnad-Girish/dp/0195644433/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2K5AE82AUV59C&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.XihNDhQPslK2S5KFPf6AtLzS06e2QC0TqhTMNgeQUrldV19A3nsujzPeBf1_NUeWkdt7rhugnO8RiypZR9LYGtEXVVmEktBzigCvOWrVo-KVOuvjWEVrbbO7jC6J3Y73OP9pX8vkzaK82AVKcywaqw.MKx_bU21XafbbKn22-LGlxdAwdgnChL-TUxYTj14pjY&dib_tag=se&keywords=the+fire+and+the+rain+by+girish+karnad&nsdOptOutParam=true&qid=1724268953&sprefix=The+Fire+and+the+Rain+-+Girish+Karnad%2Caps%2C94&sr=8-1