We make sense of the world around us based on our fears, weaknesses, biases and perceptions. And with time, we unknowingly change the meanings of words and the attributes of our gods and goddesses to match our thoughts and beliefs.
Our scholars conceived gods and goddesses from their minds to ensure we followed a moral code of conduct so that harmony prevailed in society. We called these cultural concepts Purusha. And we had to align ourselves with Nature/Prakriti who symbolised the existence of a higher force.
But these learned men knew we, ordinary beings, could not accept certain aspects of Prakriti. So they relegated the gods and goddesses who were beyond our limited understanding to dark realms and gave them a fearsome appearance.
So over time, gods like Yama and Nirrti who we revered earlier became gods that we feared and we started worshipping lesser-known goddesses like Yami as Yamuna.
Yama
In the early Vedic age, Yama was a minor god who lived in heaven. He was the son of Vivasvat and the first mortal to die and become immortal. We were scared of death and clueless about the afterlife. And since Yama had experienced death and become immortal, we believed that Yama took care of the dead and gave them food, shelter and a permanent abode to live in. So we worshipped Yama with the hope that he would grant us a happy, long disease-free life and make us immortal.
When the Upanishads were created we believed that Yama imparted knowledge to true seekers because he had explained concepts of Brahman to Nachiketa. In the epics, we looked upon Yama as Dharma Raja, a benevolent and righteous god who breathed life into Savitri’s dead husband.
But in the Ramayana, we transformed Yama into a multifaceted personality with specific traits like Yama, Antaka, Kaala and Mrtyu. When Gautami’s son died of a snake bite, the snake said it was just an instrument of death in the hands of Mrtyu. Mrtyu said Kaala wielded supreme power. Kaala said Karma determines human destiny. So Yama now worked within the framework of fate. Yama became a judge who analysed our actions, determined the fruit and ensured the effect was proportionate to the cause. We felt safe and secure with the concept of death so we called Yama Dharmaraja.
But in Puranic times we had imbibed ideas of 28 hells from Buddhism. We no longer thought of death as a safe haven. We were scared of hell. So we now believed that Yama was a harsh judge who punished sinners for their indiscretions ruthlessly.
The Bhakti movement brought deities like Krishna to the fore. Bhakti Marg was easier to follow and promised ultimate bliss. So we now preferred worshipping Krishna who was less judgemental.
Yama was good when our afterlife seemed good. And Yama became bad when we feared death. It is as simple as that.
Yami
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In the Vedic age, Yami was the lady of life. Yami and Yama were divine twins and their task was to populate the world. So Yami asked Yama to father her children. But we don’t discuss such stories openly and convince ourselves that Yama was so shocked by Yami’s request that he died.
Our scholars clearly cite Yami as Yamini, Yama’s consort in one Rig Vedic hymn. They even sire a son called Duhsvapna (bad dream). But our scholars chose not to dwell on the concept of incest because they knew it would bring about a collapse in our moral code of conduct and societal structure. So they left that particular hymn incomplete and referred to Yami as Varunani.
In another hymn, Yamini, Yama’s wife is described as a malevolent and destructive goddess who injures animals out of spite and ill will. During this phase, we were scared of death. So we associated Yami with Nirrti, the goddess of sorrow who lived in graveyards. We sacrificed mothers of twins and even twins to please Yama and Yami.
But the Bhakti movement focussed only on how Yamuna could help us attain immortality. Yami had ensured Yama became immortal by offering him various drinks in his afterlife. She loved her brother dearly. Yami had grieved for Yama when he died. So she symbolised Bhakti. Yama too loved his sister dearly. So he visited her despite his busy schedule. And today we celebrate this day as Yama Dwitiya. We now believed that Yama would surely spare his sister’s devotees from the tortures of hell.
This concept comforted us. So we looked upon Yamunaji with reverence now.
Nirrti
Another much-maligned goddess is Nirrti. We loved the bounty that Nature offered us. For free. Willingly. Without ever asking for anything in return. But we refused to accept the reality that our bodies would decay and decompose when we died. In those ancient ages, dead bodies were buried and not cremated.
In the early Vedic age, we believed that Nirrti was sacred. She was Vasudha, mother earth. But the Atharva Veda states that Varuna, the lord of Rta maintains order in Nature and Nirrti is his opposite. But we misconstrued the meaning of Nirrti here. Nirrti is not the opposite of order. Nirrti is beyond order.
But fear got the better of our good sense. Nirrti symbolised an aspect of Nature that our human mind refused to accept – that the human corpse would ultimately decompose and decay. She symbolised someone who bore life away. Her job was to carry the dead man’s life to the other world. So we reconceptualized Nirrti as the goddess of misfortune and death.
We offered her only dark husks as her share of the havis, sought protection from her, and implored her to depart from the sacrificial site. Over time we transformed Nirrti and called her Jyestha, Alakshmi and Dhumvati.
Jyestha
Jyestha, the elder sister of Lakshmi was also known as Mudevi, the goddess who presided over sorrows. She emerged along with the Halahal during the Samudra Manthan. And the Purans cite that Vishnu, Brahma and Shiva instantly sent her away ordering her to sit in inauspicious places.
Alakshmi
We now believed that Alakshmi, the goddess of strife and quarrels lived in places where people were selfish, ego-driven and vain. We hung a string of seven chillies with a lime, Alakshmi’s favourite food, and satiated Alakshmi’s hunger at the doorstep itself and kept her out.
Dhumavati
Some scholars associated Nirrti, Jyestha and Alakshmi with Dhumavati, the seventh amongst the dasa Mahavidyas, a group of ten Tantric goddesses. They describe her as an old, ugly widow who sits on a horseless chariot in cremation grounds.
According to them, like Nirrti, Dhumavati too represented something that existed beyond order and disorder and human imagination. They believed that such goddesses manifested only at the time of cosmic dissolution, pralaya, and existed in the void before creation and after dissolution.
A present-day scholar sums up the essence of these entities very aptly when he says, “Dhumavati’s smoke is an illusion that hides the inner reality. She is the good fortune that comes to us in the form of misfortune. She embodies the power of suffering for only through the negative aspects of misery, quarrels and poverty can we nurture virtues like patience, persistence, forgiveness and detachment. Dhumavati’s winnow symbolises that we should learn to separate our illusions from reality.”
It’s high time we sobered up to these seemingly ugly but harsh realities of life. That’s all.
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