The Onus of Karma Read online

  PENGUIN BOOKS

  THE ONUS OF KARMA

  Rudra Krishna was born in Madras in 1982. After entering the Bar at the age of twenty-one, he moved to Cardiff where he completed his Masters in Law, worked in numerous vocations and wrote his first novel, The Onus of Karma, before returning in 2008. He has also published a book of poetry, All I Want Is Everything in 2004. He is currently working as an editor in a publishing house in Chennai.

  The Onus of Karma

  RUDRA KRISHNA

  PENGUIN BOOKS

  To my mother, Nanditha Krishna, and my beautiful wife,

  Lydia Telgarska Krishna,

  the two women who define my life

  PREFACE

  What is karma? Is it our purpose, or is it our destiny? Are we given our individual abilities so that we may do with them as we must? Perhaps, it is so that we can do with them all we can. At any event, they should not limit us. They can’’t be a burden, but a gift.

  If it is our duties that we are here to accomplish, then why do they so often cause conflict within our souls? Do we take up what is right, or do we take up what feels right? It is, I suppose, a question of morality.

  Morality is as diverse a thing as exists in this world, and yet there is nothing quite as categorical.

  Revenge is perhaps the most singular act of them all, embarked upon as an expression of one’’s own feelings of guilt or helplessness. It is a path that does much more to those who follow it rather than those into whose lives it leads. For one, it mars his life; for the other, it mars his soul. You know best what will suit you. Revenge, yes, but revenge against whom?

  PROLOGUE

  It was the time of creation. A time when the earth was still cooling down, separated from the great fireball from which it had emerged. A time just after most of the planet had been covered by the waters that flowed from Lord Shiva’s matted locks on to the earth to put out the fires that had forged the planet. Out of this water was born Narayana, or Vishnu the preserver, from whose navel rose Brahma the creator.

  It was a time when the celestial beings, the Devas and the Asuras, the logical positives and negatives that balanced the divine equation of our planet, roamed the earth freely. If we are to perceive Brahman as the force that created our universe, then the Trinity, along with all the other gods, are its deputies on our planet.

  The earth then was not as we know it now. It was a smoky planet filled with potential. Lord Shiva had chosen the Himalayas, with the highest peaks on earth, for his sanctuary, while Vishnu and Brahma both chose to reside in the sea of milk, the latter resting in the lotus which grew from Vishnu’s navel.

  One of the Asuras mentioned earlier, Hiranyaksha, was the first to realize the material potential of the planet, making him the first being ever to lust for power, the cause of his downfall. He saw in the one big landmass in the middle of the planet—for the gods had still not gone about splitting the continents—something he could possess, rule over, and eventually use to grow more powerful. Hiranyaksha decided to win the favour of the gods, and settled into a deep penance. He focused on the Trinity, and if legend is to be believed, he did it for a thousand years.

  At the end of this period, Brahma, touched by his devotion and concentration, appeared and offered him anything he wanted. Hiranyaksha asked Brahma to make him the most powerful being in the universe, that he should grow stronger with every challenge and that he should not be killed by either man or beast.

  Brahma was the kindest of the Trinity, the least cynical. While he knew that it was more than likely that Hiranyaksha would misuse his powers, he also believed that Hiranyaksha had earned whatever he asked for, and so he hesitantly granted it, for he couldn’t very well take back his promise, and left, with no idea of what Hiranyaksha had planned with this gift.

  But the Asura knew. The minute Brahma left, he went after the first thing he had coveted since he had been born—Bhoomi Devi, the splendid mother earth. He however realized that the only way to keep her as his would be to hide her, and so he picked her up and submerged her in the ocean of milk, a hundred yojanas from the surface, and chained to the sea bed.

  Brahma witnessed this whole scene from afar, and the creator panicked. He knew that Bhoomi Devi and Lord Vishnu were deeply in love, and knew that it would have to be his duty to tell Vishnu. Of Vishnu’s calm, we all know, but Vishnu had a side that Brahma had witnessed already, when he became an avenger. And when he did, the scene Brahma witnessed was far more terrifying than anything he had ever seen in the past. Enraged, Vishnu let out a loud and tortured scream as his body went into convulsions. He morphed into Varaha, a huge mighty man with the head of a boar, neither man nor beast, a pure powerhouse.

  Varaha went out in search of Hiranyaksha and what ensued was one of the most terrifying battles in the then short history of the universe. It is said that some of the tremors from that great battle are still felt around the earth. Hiranyaksha made many a bid to escape, but Varaha was remorseless in his thirst for blood. Their battle raged all across the universe, throwing planets out of orbit and sending them hurtling into space, shattering planets and stars into millions of bits, the debris of which still fly across the universe in the form of comets and asteroids.

  As their fight raged, Varaha threw Hiranyaksha across Indraloka, sending him crashing into the tree of life. Then still young, the tree of life was the first tree ever, created by Brahma. It was impervious to all types of weather. In fact, it had the ability to control the forces of nature. Its seeds were planted on earth in different parts, and they grew into plants suited for the specific area they grew in, but all that was then still to come. Right now, the force of the impact made by Hiranyaksha crashing into the tree caused a branch to snap off, creating the most terrifying storms and rains ever, creating the oceans and rivers in all the cracks that had been formed from the initial impacts of this terrifying battle. The continents were separated.

  And they fought on and on. Varaha realized that Hiranyaksha was only growing in power. The life forms on Bhoomi Devi were slowly evolving, but they were unable to evolve out of the water as the whole planet was submerged and the natural order of life was being disrupted. The two opponents, however, did not have time to consider any of this. Their maces grew heavier as time marched on, and Varaha realized that he would require the help of the Destroyer of Evil, Shiva, to overcome this opponent. Brahma had realized this too, and approached Shiva to ask him to help Varaha. Reluctant to get involved, Shiva sent Varuna, the lord of the wind and ruler of the hydrosphere, to help out.

  When Varuna arrived at the scene of the terrifying battle, he was just in time to see Hiranyaksha hurl a ball of fire at Varaha, and Varuna managed to deflect it. When Hiranyaksha noticed this addition to his battle, he let out a huge bellow of rage and without a second’s hesitation, turned to him. This was the opening Varaha had been looking for. Within a trice, he reached Hiranyaksha and plunged his hand straight into his side, pulling out the demon’s entrails. Thus, with the help of the wind, Varaha finally overcame Hiranyaksha, ripping him to pieces and throwing him into the flames of the netherworld, the furnaces of which were the forge out of which the universe emerged. Varaha then dove to the depths of the ocean to free his love, and gently put her back in orbit around the sun.

  But this was not the end, for Varaha, drunk with his own power over the demon who imprisoned the earth, stayed on the planet. As man slowly evolved, he learnt the truth behind the origin of the universe and he deified Varaha as a god on earth. But nothing corrupts as absolutely as absolute power. Varaha became as tyrannical on earth as Hiranyaksha had ever wanted to be. He reigned for many years on the planet, taking at will and destroying all that got in his way. He was immortal, and thus man evolved a frightened creature
. Fear numbs the mind, disallows its evolution. Things reached a stage where all the gods approached Shiva, the only one capable of controlling this situation and asked him to intervene.

  Shiva visited Varaha on his secluded island from where he ruled in tyranny. A frightened and isolated land that was frozen in its evolution because of the horrors it had seen. When Shiva spoke to him, Varaha laughed in his face and attempted to physically throw him out. Enraged, Shiva fought back, and as their anger grew, both of them grew in size, assuming terrifying proportions. Their fight raged across the surface of the planet as they waded through the oceans and Varaha fled across the mountains. Shiva, now in the form of Rudra, relentlessly hunted him down. He finally caught up with Varaha and ripping out one of Varaha’s tusks, plunged it into his heart with such force that it went through the surface of the planet and came out of the other side, pinning Varaha to the surface of the earth. Shiva then extracted a promise from Varaha that he would behave himself and banished him to the Tirumala hills.

  And the gods showered praise on Shiva for his victory over the mighty Varaha. Vishwakarma, the divine architect, carved out of the broken branch of the tree of life, a beautiful wheel which he presented to Shiva. Vishnu consecrated a temple over the very spot where Shiva had triumphed over Varaha, adorning the Shiva linga on either side with his own symbols, the conch and the discus, as a mark of respect for Shiva’s superiority over him, and dubbed the temple as the Temple of ‘Varahishwar’ or the Lord of Varaha.

  Badri; the Himalayan foothills. It was a bitterly cold morning; daybreak was still a few hours away and nobody stirred. The occasional howl of a wolf would rise slowly in the night and melt away, assuming a stillness which made one believe that it was a product of the imagination. It was too cold for the crickets to be chirping or the night owls to be hooting. All of Badri was fast asleep.

  But one man, a sanyasi, was awake. He hadn’t slept for days. The voice wouldn’t allow him to. It echoed loudly in his mind every time he closed his eyes. The voice never said much, just enough to convince the sanyasi that it wasn’t something he was imagining. He had no idea what he needed to do in Badri, or who he was looking for. Sitting on the steps of the temple tank, he kept looking around, expecting something to come to him from the darkness. He knew he was there for a reason. He had too short a time to live for nothing to happen.

  It was a blissful little town; even in the frightening quiet that it was cloaked in, it looked beautiful. That the whole town revolved around the temple was obvious. Each of the town’s four streets led to a tank and then to the temple. The tank was huge and the water in it glittered like a massive mirror.

  A beautiful man, the sanyasi was tall, with an almost perfectly oval face and a shaved head. But one would notice none of that, for his eyes would draw you in. They were golden brown, warm and full of love. On that cold morning, his eyes glistened in the dark as he peered around him for the clue that was to tell him what to do next. All of a sudden, a blue light burnt brightly high up in the mountains. Instinct told him that this was his signal. He got to his feet, picked up his stick and started walking towards the light.

  The mountain had no roads that led to the light, so the man was forced upwards on a pathless trek. He did this effortlessly, though he was bare-footed. As he leapt from point to point like a man possessed, he appeared to have magic within. To us, there are mountains, there are obstacles. Some that hinder us, and some that block us, or so it would seem. He saw the universe for what it was, just another point on the soul’s journey through time. He had transcended our reality.

  He reached the source of the light after two hours—it seemed to emanate from deep inside a cave. It was still dark. The man peered into the cave and saw a flight of stairs leading upwards. He walked on without hesitation. The cave was huge, and the stairs seemed to infinitely spiral up the inner surface of the mountain. As he climbed, he could feel the temperature drop, but he only felt warmer. He began to run, two steps at a time. After about two hours, the summit was visible. Soon after, he reached the top. It was a wondrous sight. The mountain he stood on was the highest in that range; it was surrounded all around by other icy peaks—the wind blew a plume of snow off the tops of the mountains; it seemed as if the mountains themselves were smoking. But he had no inclination to admire the view. His attention was drawn to a figure sitting on a boulder, before whose image he had stood all his life, whose name he said a thousand times a day. The lord of the Himalayas, Shiva himself.

  He collapsed to his knees, never taking his eyes off the divine and serene form sitting in front of him.

  ‘What is it, my child?’ Shiva asked. ‘You seem surprised.’

  ‘Only that I met you so early in life, my lord. I had counted on a much harder journey to reach you!’

  ‘I haven’t sent for you prematurely. You’re here at the right time in your journey through life. You’ve gained recognition and respect all across the land. You’ve done more for sanathana dharma than anyone else has in recent times, and you’ve always known that you were sent down here for a purpose.’

  ‘I know I have a purpose, my lord. I’m here to serve you.’

  Shiva looked amused by his answer, ‘I do not need your service, child. You are here to serve the people among whom you were born. Too many people in your world have forgotten how the universe came about and the truth behind their origin—but perhaps that is the will of the universe. What troubles me is that too many have lost hope as well.’

  The sanyasi pondered this for a while. He was at a loss, for he did not know anything about the things Shiva mentioned. He hung his head ashamedly and said, ‘My lord, you have been deceived in me. I have seen nothing of the truth behind the origin of life, or our planet. I am as lost as the rest of my race!’

  With great love in his eyes, Shiva smiled at him and said, ‘I know, my child. That is why you are here—to learn.’ He gazed at the vast expanse of white mountains and said, ‘I find this place soothing and so very peaceful! I need to meditate, to focus my energies on the universe—I have to be in so many places at once, I must focus. I see men fighting over what I am, over whether I exist, over which religion I endorse, over which skin colour is superior, which kingdom has my protection, which planet is to rule over a certain galaxy. In this vast universe, every planet that Brahma has ever created has gone through phases, unaware of the reason for its existence. I have had to destroy so many life forms on so many planets because they became forces of imbalance, eating away at the universe. I have failed constantly, and if gods can fail, mortals can, too—but you must try!’

  Feeling completely lost, the man walked up to Shiva and asked, ‘Try what, my lord?’

  ‘To fulfil your karma by freeing man’s mind, teach him to shed fear and live in freedom, teach him that he is a god.’

  ‘How do I do that, my lord?’

  ‘You must teach people of the oneness between man and god. You must tell them that nothing but the truth can release them from the cycle of life and death they are trapped in.’

  The sanyasi looked troubled as he replied, ‘My lord, you know that enough people have spoken about these things!’

  ‘And many more will,’ Shiva thundered. ‘Scores like you will be born, whose only purpose will be to attain nirvana. But know this: it will soon be time for your atma, your soul, to reunite with Brahman, but before you come back to me you must do something for me—you will carry something to Jambudvipa and hide it to the south of the land.’

  The ascetic nodded, waiting for Shiva to elucidate.

  ‘I will give you a chakra that was fashioned from a branch of the tree of life. In it are embedded two blue diamonds. At the fated time, the diamonds will fall out of the chakra and be found by someone meant to protect it. The world is changing and the Brahmins, born to protect dharma, will become corrupt. Go back, hide the wheel, and create an order of people who will watch over the protectors of the chakra. Aeons ago, a temple was built for me in the south. The chakra must be hidden
in this temple.’

  Shiva pulled out a beautiful wooden chakra from behind the rock he sat on and handed it to the man. Taking it with a great sense of responsibility, the sanyasi asked, ‘And these protectors, my lord? Who are they?’

  ‘You don’t need to know that, my child. They will shine among others. Your only duty is to ensure that they never lose faith.’

  ‘What is the chakra for, my lord? Won’t it disturb the order of things?’

  ‘All things are meant to do so. This chakra will be given to men, it will be hidden by men, and any person who finds it will use it as he pleases. You don’t understand yet, do you? The whole idea behind this life of yours has been to see how ready you are for the next, to prepare you for the next. The chakra belongs among men, for them to deal with as they see fit, and the right person, who uses it as it was meant to be used, will ensure that humanity profits from it; while that person would attain identity with Brahman. Now listen to what I say.

  ‘Close to Kanchi is the village of Damarpalli. In this village is the temple of which I speak. You will involve the head priest in your secret and entrust this chakra to him. He will find the right place to hide it …’

  And Shiva gave the man detailed instructions. He enlisted all the things that the sanyasi had still to finish before he could attain moksha.

  ‘I shall do as you say, my lord,’ said the man, when Shiva finished.

  ‘Now you must go,’ said Shiva, touching him gently on his shoulder. ‘Your journey begins now, and you have many miles to travel. Time will always move on. She respects none, not even the gods.’

  But the ascetic did not want to leave; he had found the ultimate joy.

  In response to his thoughts, rather than his expressions, Shiva said, ‘Go on, my child. I promise that you will be forever with me and in me, but now you must go.’

  Shiva pulled Shankara into an embrace. When the ascetic opened his eyes, he found himself back by the tank, with the chakra on the ground right next to him. It was dark, as it had been when he left, and as silent. Time had stood still; maybe she did wait for the gods!