DEVATAS USED BY THE KINGS AND THE PRIESTS FOR THEIR PERSONAL BENEFITS
The subject of Devatas has since long confounded the opinions of scholars. Vedas and Upanishads are replete with their mention. Even Krishna mentions them in Gita on several occasions. Initially, people revered them and invoked them to seek blessings from God. With time, they started worshipping them as gods, and the entire fabric of Vedic teachings got corrupted.
Truth is that the greatest of deviations occur from within. People who blame other religions or outsiders for corruption forget that the outsiders can get a foot-hold only when the rot has begun within. As you read, you will find the same happening to the teachings of Buddha. Likewise, the Islamic teachings too were hijacked by those who claimed to be Muslims. Indo-Aryans too could not safeguard themselves from internal forces leading the core teachings astray. Enemy was never from outside, it was within the community and also within us.
A detailed reading of the Puranas make it clear that there was a time when the sanctity and respect attached to the name of these Devatas was used to strengthen the position of the kings and the priests. In the introduction to the Vishnu Purana, RC Hazra says: “The sages ask Suta and Magadha to extol the king but Suta and Magadha intimidated their difficulty saying that as they knew nothing about the merits and activities of their king who was born that very day and as his fame did not spread out, they fail to understand what should form the basis of their praise. The sages said in reply: “Let the king be extolled with (the mention of) the acts this highly powerful monarch will perform and the virtues he will attain.”
This shows clearly how powerful the priests had become at one point of time. They killed King Vena for his alleged anti-Vedic views and activities; not even thinking for a moment that killing of a person itself was sin. Moreover, who gave them the authority to decide whether the King was anti-Vedic or not? As we will find in this BOOK, these priests who were killing in the name of Vedas had themselves not understood the Vedas and its content just as the Muslim Jehadis of today have not understood the teachings of Mohammad and yet are killing others in the name of Islam.
Perhaps Vena was killed in a religious ceremony itself because the Vishnu Purana talks of extracting Soma juice on the day of Soma-pressing during the ‘Paitamaha Yajna’. And then the sages asked these two poets – Suta and Magadha – to sing praises of the future acts of the king as the king had made a promise that he would acquire the same merits with devotion, which these two persons would mention by way of eulogizing him. So Suta and Magadha began singing the praises of the king using the same degree of superlatives as were normally used for the Devatas and the kings of repute. Thus, the day-old child who was sworn as king was praised for his future conduct from the day of his swearing.
See how the sages killed somebody who did not share their view and were now preparing to install a puppet, a day-old child, in whose name they wished to rule. This child was labelled as ‘highly powerful monarch’, at a time when he couldn’t utter a single word. They asked these two poets – Suta and Magadha – to sing praises of the future acts of the king saying that the king had made a promise that he would acquire the merits with devotion, which these two persons will mention by way of eulogizing him. This implies that if they sang that he would become a great king, he would become great, if they sang he would be a powerful king, he would become powerful, if they said he was a virtuous king, he would become virtuous, if they extolled him as a just king, he would do no injustice and so on. So Suta and Magadha, who usually sang praises of the Devatas on religious occasions, used the respect and fame they had gained to sing the praises of the king, using all those epithets and praises that they used for the Devatas.
This is same as you start talking of the deeds of the life of Priyanka Gandhi’s son, born on 29th August 2000, on the 30th of August, saying that he is the best of the Prime Ministers India has seen, the most truthful of men, the one who cares for Indians and one who spends his life in handling the affairs of his subjects. And you do this on the grounds of a promise extracted from the day-old child that he would acquire all those traits and virtues that the poets would sing for him. The aforementioned incident shows the extent to which the people blindly respected and revered the priests. Thus priests, to a large extent, were greatly responsible for bringing about the deviations to the true religious teachings.
See this narration from Vishnu Purana:
Then Suta and Magadha praised Prthu in a sweet voice by mentioning his future acts and describing him as truthful, bounteous, modest, friendly, forbearing, powerful and compassionate person, and as one who keeps his promises, chastises the wicked, knows Dharma (duty), acknowledges service, speaks pleasing words, honours the venerable, performs sacrifices, knows the Vedas thoroughly, makes no difference between friends and foes in administering justice, and is honoured by good men.
‘Good men’ must surely be the so-called sages, who killed Vena and must be reaping the rewards of making a day-old child sit on the throne. This shows how the brahmins kept a firm grip on the kings by keeping the propaganda machinery in their hands. The kings of the period, only those who were patronized by brahmins, were extolled with praises meant for the Devatas, despite whatever character they had and howsoever they governed the country. Naturally, only those kings who were patronized by the powerful priests were granted these benefits. And even the name of the Devatas was brought to use in this propaganda drive, as we will come to see later. It is not difficult to conjecture that once the king fell out of favour, he had to bear the wrath of the priests, as happened in the case of Vena. And such propaganda drives were initiated either to establish the rule of the king of their choice or to strengthen his hold over the subjects.
If you are thinking how the people could be so foolish that they believed all this or if you are of the opinion that this could not happen in these times anymore, we remind you of the case of idols drinking milk not only in India, but even in far off places like UK and the USA. Even today there are several ashrams that get richer by thousands of litres of oil, each Saturday. Devotees throng to the gurus seeking spirituality and salvation but only get glorified doses of materialism.
In Kautilya’s Arthasastra (V.3.xiii.1), we find the Pauranika - Suta and Magadha - as given a very high position in the royal court like the Kartanika (foreteller), Naimittika (reader of omens), Mauhurtika (astrologer) and others and allowed to draw a salary of 1000 Panas, but they are said to have been employed for “giving wide publicity to the power of the king to be associated with Devatas throughout his territory,” and in foreign countries, for “spreading the news of Devatas appearing before the conqueror and of his having received weapons and treasure from heaven.”
These are not our words, but those of Kautilya’s Arthasastra, endorsed by RC Hazra in this book. The wordings here clearly show that the stories of arms from heaven were created to get a psychological advantage over their enemies. Do we require any other proof to show how the character of Devatas like Indra got maligned; so much so that several people today believe that Indra was perhaps a man of loose moral character? Could this have been possible, considering that Indra never came down on earth, and when he did actually came to live on this earth at a later time, by that time people had forgotten about him and did not even realize that he was the Indra of the Vedas (you will know more about this secret later in this BOOK).
It is extremely sorry that the present-day Hindus see even Kautilya’s Arthasastra as part of their religious literature, in spite of the fact that Kautilya had nothing to do with true religion. Teachings like those that talk of using all possible means, even deplorable, to achieve one’s objectives, are oft quoted by the Hindus. They forget that Kautilya was merely a shrewd politician who used religion to his advantage. Otherwise, the real preachers of true Hindu teachings are the likes of Maryada Purushottam Rama who left the palace life to live a life of hardships just for an apparently insignificant moral issue. Likewise, physical purity of his wife was so dear to Rama that he forced Sita, his beloved wife for whom he had taken on the might of a powerful king, to agni-pariksha. It is sad chapter of Indian history that the later day scholars gave countless worldly men, like Kautilya, who had nothing to do with spirituality or religion, the aura of auspiciousness.
This is how all those absurd stories about Devatas like IndraDeva and VayuDeva came into circulation, which form part of the present-day Puranas. If the priests and the kings could go to these levels to retain their hold over power, they would have surely tried to hide their sins once the lady who had to face their lustful acts got pregnant. This was particularly so because the king’s fame had been built on righteous acts and it was not expected of him or of the maidens of their household to have ill-gotten children. The blame was conveniently shifted on the Devatas, whom none had seen but all revered and worshipped. This could not have happened without support of the high priests. Therefore, we see several such children when we read Mahabharata; a great many of them were fighting either on the side of Krishna or against him.
Is it difficult to comprehend that the sins of sages and kings were ascribed to the Devatas? So much so that if a woman in forest was impregnated by somebody and if she happened to be from an influential family, it was publicized that Indra or Sun God or Moon God came down to commit that act of sin, thereby taking away the blame from that woman and also hiding the identity of the person who impregnated her. Since money was spent in this propaganda drive and the learned sages were responsible for carrying it out, because of their firm hold on the simple and ignorant people, it slowly became part of folklore, all of whom were later given a place in the Puranas when they were rewritten due to certain unknown compulsions at a later stage. (We will prove in some later work that the Puranas in existence are not in their original state and were rewritten in the medieval period with a lot many changes from their original content). After all, if the woman said that it was the moon-god who did this to her, and the revered sage authenticated it by saying that the moon-god came to him to wash away the remnants, consequent to performing the act, it was difficult to disbelieve it.
The sages were even smarter. They even be-fooled the kings at times, so much so that the kings gave away their wives to them, in order to produce children possessing god-like powers. Vishnu Purana recounts one such incident. Similar incidents are available in few other Puranas as well. It is common sense that the kings married the most beautiful of women. The priests, owing to their extraordinary power over the kings and also because of the false supremacy that they had propagated for themselves, made these kings part away with their wives. The wives came to sleep with these ‘revered sages’ so that children with extraordinary powers were born to them. Thus the priests even initiated adultery, using the great respect that people and kings had for them. And the common people must have continued to see them as Brahmcharis (wilfully celibate).
Puranas say that even in Krishna’s time, examples of Rishis begetting children from young and unmarried women and having illicit relationships with the wives of the kshattriya kings and princes abounded.
Another reason why the priests enjoyed such great supremacy over kings was because of the great control that these pseudo-priests had over the common people. The kings feared that the priests were in position to create a negative atmosphere about the king, if they fell from their grace. The chief priest only had to wake up in the morning and say that such and such Devata came in dream and said that the king was not working as per the Vedic teachings, and people would have ousted the king. On the contrary, if the king kept them satisfied, they narrated positive stories to the people. Even stories of arms coming from heaven were created to give a psychological advantage over the enemies. Thus the kings went out of the way to satisfy the priests, even if it meant sending their wives to them or showering them with gifts.
Read the entire Matsya Purana and you will get to realize the significance of Krishna’s statement when he said that God was nowhere to be found in the religious sacrifices and neither were the teachings of morality, auspiciousness, chastity, non-violence, etc. were visible.
Even Indra and Brhaspati are described as having stooped to the level of mortal sinners so much so that they do not seem to listen to the talk of morality in front of their lustful desires or when in love with someone else’s wife. How can this be accepted of Indra or Brhaspati when Divine Scriptures like the Vedas are full of praises for them? Even their righteousness and steadfastness has been praised time and again. But have we understood the Vedas truly? You will know shortly that we have not! Fact remains that Indra and Brhaspati are the highest creation of the Absolute God and the rest of jivas (beings) owe their creation to them. If Puranas have penned down such thoughts about them, it shows they contain nothing but heresy and canards, written by someone who was himself unable to distinguish between right and wrong.
The Vishnu Purana mentions several instances where Rishis built huge palaces for their several wives. Rishi Saubhari made King Mandhatri marry all his 50 daughters to him. The king did so as he was “dreading to incur the anger and imprecation of the holy man.” Such was the fear of these ‘holy men’. Says the Vishnu Purana further:
The sage took them home to his habitation, where he employed the chief of architects, Visvakarman, equal in taste and skill to Brahma himself, to construct separate palaces of each of his wives: he ordered him to provide each building with elegant couches and seats and furnitures, and to attach to them gardens and groves, with reservoirs of water, where the wild-duck and the swan should sport amidst beds of lotus flowers.
Note the wordings: “equal in taste and skill to Brahma himself”. Viswakarman may have been a very talented architect but he is being equated with Brahma. If somebody who was a mere ‘chief of architects’ was bestowed with such praises, imagine how much false praises the kings and priests must be circulating regarding their own greatness. It were ultimately the Devatas – the revered ‘gods’ of the period – whose reputation was brought down to enhance the reputation of these people.
We read these accounts and move ahead. Not for a moment do we realize the negative aspect of it. All the wealth had got confined in the hands of the so-called Rishis. Rishi Saubhari had so much of wealth that he could afford 50 palaces for his 50 wives. Did we ever think from where all this must have come? Even the kings were afraid of the Rishis, so much so that a king parted with all his daughters and married them to an old Rishi, who could not even walk straight. Naturally, the kings bestowed generous donations on the sages so as to keep them happy and even supplied them with women, sometimes their own wives, to safeguard themselves from their wrath.
Readers are requested to read the Upanishads devoted to Yajnavalkya, a learned saint who is seen going to the palaces to answer questions of the ‘revered’ priests of the time. This shows the priests got accustomed to power and wealth to such an extent that they were mostly available in the corridors of power. Materialism reigned supreme while they talked of spirituality. The kings, in response to their questions related to gods and spirituality, talked of giving in return a cow with horns of gold and such material presents as gifts. Materialism governed their lives to such an extent that material and worldly gifts are talked about in Puranas in return for reading of the Puranas or making copies of these books. No spiritual rewards are mentioned for reading the Puranas. For instance, heaven or hell or moksha or spiritual excellence are not talked about. Instead, there are wordings like reading this Purana is equivalent to giving so much cows to a brahmin or giving gold to them. We see this trend right till the times of Buddha where we find kings and rich men gifting upvan (gardens) and large pieces of land to the priests.
How such Rishis could have ever endorsed Krishna’s teachings, which talked of returning to God? They knew Krishna emphasized on righteousness and subjugation of self and the acts to none but God and accepting these teachings would have meant bidding farewell to their lives of luxury. Who would have liked to lose such a lifestyle where the kings too were afraid of the Rishis and sages to a great extent? This is the reason why Bhishma and Drona, who surely represented an entire group of brahmins stood up to oppose Krishna, thereby leading to the battle of Mahabharata. It were they who were instrumental in gathering the various rulers to the side of the Kauravas. This is the reason why Gita describes Duryodhana as blind; someone who was (mis)led by the religious gurus of the time to fight the ‘dharma’ (religious) war against Krishna and his followers.
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