Taking the rambling outpouring of lies, bloody lies and no statistics ahead, let me tell you a hypothetical story of an unknown land.
Long, long time ago, there was a region with the aboriginal people of the dark persuasion in the dermal pigmentation department.
There was enough civilization for sprawling city-states to prosper.
At a different rung of the civilization ladder were forest-living hunter gatherers. They had a ruddy tinge to their skin, accentuated by the high iron content soil of the plateau region they stayed in.
In addition in the north-eastern part of the region, stayed another group of tribes, known for their ferocity in war, exotic food habits and elaborate head dresses.
In this region came a tall and fair tribe of people, with their own culture and way of life (let’s not use the word “religion”, please).
They found the dominant tribe of the region as… umm… strange looking and fearsome, with their dark skin color, preternaturally white seeming teeth. And may or may not have met them in battle many a times.
Stories were told of the inhuman cruelty of the adversary, to the extent of accusing them of cannibalism, blood thirst and being not human.
To better boast of the small victories on the tribes in the northern part of the region and explaining away the abject defeats in the hands of the tribes in the southern part of the region, the adversary race was given supernatural powers and superhuman strength. They were equated to the supernatural entities of the camp-fire scare stories of the homelands and called axuras (ahuras?).
The red-skinned forest dwellers were called as forest men or vana-naras, and considered sub-human or va-naras; and equated to monkeys or apes to be jeered at.
And the fancy-head-dressed north-eastern tribes were called “hooded snakes”or nagas; both for the hooded head-dresses they sometimes wore and the poison tipped arrows some of them used.
The major godheads/hero-worship targets of the aboriginal culture (again, let’s not use the R-word, if possible), were two quite attractive specimens.
First was of the type seen in Egypt; i.e. Kings-Of-Yore-Turned-Godhead type.
Any king could and did attempt to be called a manifestation of this god. If he was powerful enough in life and successful enough in war and in addition his descendants smart enough and insistent enough to continue the propaganda, in a not so futile hope that some of the godliness would rub off on them, then the antics and exploits were embellished further and included in the stories the itinerant bards sang of the old times or puranas.
The common nomenclature was someone who reached divinity but was surprisingly “a man, who came from (was son of) a man”. Or when translated to the language of the new tribe, “Nara Nara-ayana” which was soon abbreviated to “Narayana” and then confused to Naar-Ayana or “one who comes from water” (go figure).
Second was more of an amalgam. Recipe below:
:: Add one part of Bloodthirsty-Warrior-Who-When-Not-In-War-Can-Be-Appeased-Easily-As-He-Is-Addicted-To-Intoxicants (hence whose glory did not unduly trouble the ruling family) to an equal part of Ascetic-Looking-War-Lord-Who-Doesn’t-Care-As-Long-As-You-Don’t-Attack-But-Who-Can-And-Will-Hand-You-Your-Beribboned-Derriere-If-Disturbed (hence whose glory troubled the ruling family but they were helpless to show that).
:: To this potent mix, add the habit of forgetful bards to confuse the timelines and storylines and embellish stories whenever they forgot the specific details.
Hence instead of multiple personalities and people, you get a single eternal godhead with confusing character changes, which the bards quite smartly attributed to being innocent; i.e. A Great-Lord (“Mahadeva”) yet Innocent-Lord (“Bholenaath”). Interestingly, quite a few of the actual persons whose stories contributed to the legends were members of the red-skinned people (see the second part of the amalgam). Hence, once in a while, the name which meant Red-Skinned-One or the One-with-a-Fairer-Skin-than-Us in the aboriginal language (“Shiva”) was also used for this Godhead. The word was quite similar to the word in the language of the new tribe for “the auspicious one”.
Now, as a matter of fact the persons behind, hence the persona so deified was of a dark complexion. So, when the mutual attenuation and universal amalgamation process happened between the two cultures, the dark color which had been so strongly associated with evil had to be euphemized to blue.
That answers the question we raised in the earlier post, somewhat.
Let’s see next time if it totally answers it, or does it answer more than we asked it to? Just like when I told about all my real and imaginary ailments to an occasional and now-past acquaintance when he innocently asked me “So [Fill in Name Here], how are you?”
Random Mythoscopy 