Ancients Speak
Suman K Sharma
The efforts of the heavenly beings to churn the ocean had borne fruit. Dhanvantri, the epitome of the world’s medicine men, emerged from the deep, carrying a jugful of amrit. Almost instantly, a clash broke out, with both devas and daityas shouting, “Me first! Me first!” The daityas said they had the first right to the ambrosia as they were the sons of Diti, Kashyap’s senior wife and stronger than devas. Devas too would not budge from their claim. “Not a drop to the tyrant daityas,” they said.
Vishnu, who had involved Himself in the huge exercise right from the beginning, could not let the matters go out of hand. Assuming the form of a luscious and lascivious lass, Mohini, He took away the pot of amrit from Dhanvantri. Carrying it on her shoulder, Mohini walked alluringly between the lines of devas and daityas and volunteered to serve both the parties, if only they calmed themselves down and queued up in a disciplined fashion, devas on one side and daityas on the other. The gasping daityas agreed readily and so did devas. Queues were formed and in between Mohini walked her sensuous walk, carrying the prized jug of ambrosia. To devas, she poured mouthfuls, but to daityas she gave only her bewitching smiles and nothing else. Two of the daityas, Rahu and Ketu, however, who were watchful enough to see through the antics of the devious beauty, managed to intrude into the queue of devas and had sips of amrit on the sly. They became immortal and are a cause of great mischief in the astrological universe even to this day. Barring the two, all the daityas remained spellbound by Mohini’s physical charms and woke up from the magic only when she had emptied the vessel serving the last of the devas.
Ishwar is partisan to the devout, be they devas in the heaven, or us, mere earthlings. For those who place their absolute faith in Him, He is prepared to do anything, even go against His own commitment to be an impartial arbiter in any dispute. In the present story, Vishnu cheated the daityas of their right to partake of amrit so that only devas could have the benefit of vigour and immortality it endowed.
At a subtler level, the story seems to convey that we have both the good and bad in us – good that promotes what all is conducive to a happy, healthy and fruitful life; and bad, that negates it. There arise situations when our positive attributes have to be one-upped and replenished by cheating the negativities such as improper urges and unhealthy cravings. It is there that we have to act like Vishnu and let the negativities die away by allurements. A diabetic, for instance, may win over the craving for a piece of chocolate by thinking of the warm feeling of having conquered his weakness for sweets.
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