Life and Death: Kaliyug Death of A Vishnu-bhakt

By Narayani Ganesh

Gajendra the elephant panicked. No matter how hard he tried, he simply could not free himself from the crocodile's death-grip. As he was being dragged into the water, he could not bear to think that his life would soon be over.

And that, too, as crocodile fodder. "Narayana, save me! You are my only hope," Gajendra cried, throwing up a lotus bloom he had held in his trunk. He was a devout Vishnu-bhakt. His fervent prayers and heart-rending appeal stirred Vishnu into action: The 'Protector of the Helpless' rushed to the spot, and felled the crocodile with His chakra , saving His loyal bhakt in the nick of time.

Vishnu had barely saved Gajendra's life when He heard another heart-rending plea for help. This time, it was King Ratnakar who was crying out, asking Vishnu to protect him from the rakshasas who were disrupting a yajna he was conducting. Vishnu rushed again - this time to save Ratnakar from the rakshasas.

When He appeared before the king, His posture was still in the 'Gajendra-moksha mode' : His arms carrying the chakra and panchajanya were by his side, and not in the usual upright position. This roop of Vishnu was immortalised by King Ratnakar at the Rajivlochan temple at Rajim - 45 km from Chhattisgarh's capital, Raipur - where the dark stone deity is worshipped as the 'Lotus-eyed One', the saviour of devotees, the Protector of the helpless.

At Rajivlochan temple pujaris were kshatriyas , relatives of the king, and the tradition continues to this day. Eight kshatriya families share the responsibility of maintenance and performance of rituals. The two incidents are believed to have taken place during Satyug, the Age of Truth in the Hindu concept of Kalpa or Time. It was the ideal Yug when truth and goodness prevailed. It was a time when society was egalitarian; and people were free to choose their vocation.

All life was held sacred. The Gajendramoksha story portrays Vishnu as being equally concerned with the plight of the aggrieved elephant as he was with the mighty king's problem. The crocodile was the selfish aggressor whose only motive was to hurt Gajendra. It transpires that the accursed crocodile was actually waiting to be liberated by Vishnu.

Mythological references lead us to believe that we are currently living in the fourth and most degenerate Yug of all -  Kaliyug  - when a mere 25 per cent of human activity is remotely related to truth. In Satyug , truth prevailed; in Tretayug , the truth component fell to 75 per cent and Dwaparyug saw it halved to 50 per cent.

If this were indeed so, it could be the only possible explanation for the recent capture, torture and brutal killing of a refugee elephant - in the very same region, Chhattisgarh, where the Gajendramoksha episode had been immortalised and the saviour deified and worshipped for thousands of years.

The elephant captured in Chhattisgarh was a victim, not just of an over-eager, insensitive agency that was ironically set up for the specific purpose of protecting endangered pachyderms. The poor animal was first forced to leave the forests of neighbouring states frightened by miners and rendered homeless by human-induced forest degradation. And then, when it tried to survive, looking for food, it was chased, caught, and made to die a slow death. Whatever happened to our tradition of respecting all life forms?

It has been said that the moral index of a country can be determined from the way its people treat animals. If this is a reliable yardstick, then I'm afraid all the scriptures and oral traditions that have been woven around the concept of sanctity of life and mutual respect - which many of us take pride in quoting - have simply been wasted on us.

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See also: Life and Death, Life and Beyond, Death and Dying, Body Mind and Soul)