Corporate of Heaven and the implications of Hell
I have often wondered why we have so many Gods. The legend is that Prajapati (or Brahma as you may know him) opened his huge mouth and generated Agni, Varun, Indra and the rest. Then, all the gods created, opened their minds and created a kind of a super God …Maheshwar..Shiv. This God then went back and tried to kill Brahma himself and he is dying ever since…not succeeding though…as Mrtyu, Brahma’s own daughter is always hesitating to do so. Vishnu the third of the Troika was always there apparently…a rival to Brahma and Shiv and the supreme doer so to say.
Anyways, that’s not the point that I am trying to make. The problem seems to be one of identity. Who is god? Is he one or many….Can one being, if god is a being that is, be a single window operation despite the complications that come out of running the world ( not to speak of the various management decisions that need to be taken for the running of Heaven and Hell and the worlds beyond).
I think not.
I think that the celestial committee is a collection of Management experts. There is a COO and there are various departmental heads. In this I am in total agreement with mythology…. Chitragupta is the secretary of Yama…the God that controles Mrtyu (the goddess of death). This whole administrative set up is headed by 3 Gods (fitting that it should….considering the complexities) – Brahma, Vishnu, Maheshwar. There is a board of Governors (Agni, Varuna, Shakti etc) and then there is the COO who has been diminishing in importance because of his imperfections - Indra. It is male dominated, however some of the very important portfolios are handled by women – Education, Saraswati – Lakshmi , wealth. Then there are the honorary members – who are essentially extensions of existing gods ….Krishna, Rama etc… It’s a liberal setup considering that there is a Head of the Department for the Department of Desire and the arts. It’s a workplace with perks and benefits and anybody can be a part of this …. Viz – Chiranjeevi – God for Cinematic Arts in Andhra, Rajneekanth – God for Cinematic Idiosyncrasies, Dhirubhai Ambani – God for the not so ethically inclined ….so and so forth. The latter are junior Gods, something like the Minister of State or Deputy Ministers in our Constitutional set up…they have importance in pockets without actual influence on the larger governance of creaturekind.
Its not that mere mortals or people or beings not born out of Brahma’s direct creativity are not qualified for the higher posts of full gods. Some started small and grew to magnificent strength…Hanumanjee…some started big and ended as damp squibs ….Indra. There are departmental experts who have been promoted to higher levels like Garuda, Vishwakarma, Kubera and others…and yet others seem to have gained in importance due to the work they have done for specific projects…Hidimba, Jatayu etc.
So there are many of them. Morals and scruples and social norms were not top of the mind initially. These executives and managers roamed the earth impregnating women they liked giving birth to strapping youth for carrying the earth forward. Morals really started kicking in once the population went through the roof. The Super Gods realized that the 2nd level was creating havoc and clamped down with birth control features. They were to limit themselves to the apsaras who were non reproductive in nature. Death in heaven was difficult considering the advent of Som…and therefore entry was limited to the very occasional creatures. Rajnikanth made a late entry as did MGR . There are numerous temples dotted across the island of Jambu with new and fancy deities. These are the new entrants. As always, entry is just for the deserving. However, influence counts.
In the beginning, Brahma was indeed scared of monopoly. So along with the generation of Gods, he generated the Asuras. Sura and Asuras. In fact his first children were the Asuras. So drunk were they with the power they generated that Brahma had to soon produce the Suras or the Gods. In doing so he produced a lot of inbetweens. After all, it did take a few trial and errors. So the Gandharvas and Demi Gods were created. The Asuras don’t have Soma but they have a magic Physician who keeps them alive. From God to Anti Gods - the step was easy for the Asuras. The coming of the Devas only helped in sealing their fate. The new kids took over before you could say Haven help me.
The Asuras too have their version of heaven. Going by the slightly scary name of HELL, it has a cult following amongst earth dwellers. Far more welcoming than Heaven, Hell is forever subject to bad PR. They just don’t have a good Marcomm team. However, earth dwellers have shown a distinct preference for it through the millenniums and, word of mouth has it, that it’s a infinitely more fun place to be in. Unfortunately Heaven has become this clichéd sanitized place and the same old Apsaras and facilities seem to have gone the Air India way. After all, who wants to take a drink from a 6 million year old Apsara.
Hell is a kind of Celestial Havana or Hawaii or even Las Vegas and Goa. The original Sin City, it’s a kind of reaffirmation of Original Godliness. It’s a hark back to the times when Sinning was fun…Sinning was virtue. For, all the things that the Gods did in the beginning are considered Sins now. So are we to assume that all that they did then was wrong? In any case, you are more likely to meet Merlyn Munroe, Mata Hari and Helen of Troy in some cozy alcove of Hell than in the sanitized world of heaven. You would also meet Jack The Ripper, Saddam, Stalin and if you stay long enough, you may also meet Bush, Laloo, Kim Jong and Salman Khan. Infinitely more interesting.
No wonder ……the overwhelming popularity of hell is testimony to the fact that Creaturekind wants to move back to religion. All these Bibles and Qurans are empty roads to hell, its actually sinning that is the true panacea. A sort of reaffirmation of faith as it were.
Hell is also corporatized. But its doing a better job in terms of visitors log. Look at it this way…Gandhi never made it to hell, but, Marqis De Sade did. You tell me…
