Symbols in Art and Religion by Karel Werner

Author:Karel Werner [Werner, Karel]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Social Science, Ethnic Studies, General
ISBN: 9780415861540
Google: tyvOmAEACAAJ
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2013-05-03T04:58:58+00:00

We are faced here with the problem of the removal of sin, of the transfer of merit or demerit, first through the churning of Vena's limbs, then through the action of the son. One son represents all the impurities inherited from his father which determine him in a similar way to his father — or should we look at him only as a symbol to account for certain tribes outside the pale of Brahmanism? But not even this black dwarf can fully release his father despite willy nilly taking on himself all his sins. Only his good son can accomplish this by performing the prescribed rites. Would he be symbolic of a complete change of attitude followed by good action?

Later Purāṇas (e.g. SP 7,1,336 and GP 6,4-8) change the story. Vena has to pay for his sins personally. The sage Narada tells Prthu that Vena has been reborn among the barbarians afflicted with consumption and leprosy. So the evil king not only gives birth to a progeny of barbarians from his left side, but is himself reborn as one of them, afflicted, in addition, with the worst of diseases. This is evil karmic result indeed. Motivated by filial piety, Prthu seeks out his father, brings him to a Śiva's shrine but is warned by Vāyu against desecrating the holy place. Birds tell him of another holy spot, Goṣpada, with footprints of Nandinī, the daughter of the magic cow. There his father's guilt can be washed away without desecrating the holy spot.13

The release of a soul and the negation of sin through purifying rites may not be the right way of atoning for karmic debts from the philosophical point of view, but it is in accordance with the traditional Brahmanic insistence on the performance of rites by the son at the death of his father in order to secure heaven for him. Moreover, the idea of the transference of merit and demerit is also still prevalent today. The VmP (27,1 -23), however, requires more: Siva intervenes and tells Vena that after dwelling in his presence for a while he would be reborn as the demon Andhaka and that only after further purifications he would in another birth become Bhṛgin, the leader of Śiva's hosts.

Psychologically, we might say that what is evil in a person will come out in one way or another. This is symbolized in the Vena legend by the birth of the evil son; but the whole nature was contaminated and has to be purified and so the good son performs the purifying rites. Even then, the guilty person still has to live, suffer and expiate before becoming whole again.

There are two highly important philosophical implications in the story: one is the doctrine of the sins of fathers being visited on children (well known from the Bible) and the other is its corollary, the solidarity of all life; we are all bound to one another and the behaviour of everyone affects in ways known and unknown everyone else. The

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