Occasional Paper 4<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Inspired by the The\u00a0N\u0101sad\u012bya S\u016bkta<\/strong>\u00a0(after the incipit\u00a0n\u00e1 \u00e1sat<\/em>, or “not the non-existent”), also known as the\u00a0Hymn of Creation<\/strong>, is the 129th hymn of the 10th Mandala of the RgVeda\u00a0(10:129) <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the beginning there were humans, male and female,\nbut they were not happy. They thought and felt that it was pointless to be just\nmale and female because they could not figure out what it meant to be male and\nfemale hobnobbing the earth. The problem of meaning was permeating their human consciousness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They inherited a lush land, fresh air, vegetation,\nfruits, the birds, animals and reptiles, but these were all restricted to their\nseparate domains. Humans desired something not just earthy but a bit more\nsubstantial, for the sake of association. Being the only thinking species they were\nbored, and their desire for association beyond just being alive drove them to the\nspeculative creation of another \u2018other\u2019. The humans conjured this \u2018other\u2019 as a reference,\na consultant. They expected this \u2018other\u2019 to be \u2018out there (in space) but staying\nin touch (in contact)\u2019; this was the agreement between the humans and their\nsophisticated conjuring. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now the humans suddenly found that there were \u2018thousands\nof them\u2019 out there, as the sophistication self-mutated with no reference back to\nthem. So they could do nothing except name them as \u2018gods\u2019 \u2013 for want of a\nbetter term. To this day nobody has provided a definitive definition to this\nsophistication of gods, except as influential and characterful beings \u2018out\nthere\u2019, imagined as humans looked up occasionally into the abyss of heaven wondering\nif they might be \u2018up there\u2019. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Being dissatisfied, the humans vied among themselves\nto find the most powerful among the gods, precisely because they were a\ndelightful sophistication created by them. Then, learning from the humans, the gods\nalso battled among themselves, each seeking to become the most likable among the\nhumans. Unexpectedly however, in the middle of this battle for the primacy of\nsophistication, the gods became infected by a plague. Some argued that it was\ndevised by the humans as a way of taming the sophistication. However, many gods\nsuccumbed to the plague without proper spatial quarantine and lack of ghostly\ndistancing (it has been wrongly called social distancing, but the more accurate\ndesignation is physical distancing). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The humans finally looked towards the survival of the gods\nafter the plague. The thinking was that if the gods at least did survive a complex\nplague of such magnitude then the survivors would be omniscient, omnipotent and\neven invincible. De facto<\/em>, a plague resistant pantheon was born. Humans\nwere finally happy because there appeared a celestial community out there that\nthey could access in the case of a plague or a pandemic. But, unfortunately, the\ngods also lived in a certain state of anxiety, as they were the result of a\nmutation which had been self-engineered without reference or consultation with\nthe humans who provided them with meaning for existence. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Subsequently, something happened which humans came to\nknow only belatedly. Gods without any reference or consultation created goddesses,\nbecause they argued that if the humans are male and female, then, as a function\nof their civil liberties and rights, they could deal with their experience of loneliness\nby deciding to be eternal with their spouses, at least as long as the humans\nexist. Gods and goddesses knew that there was no point of existence for them without\nhumans and that immortality was a figment of the mind of both humans and gods\nbefore either came into being. After all, immortality could even be conceptually\npossible because there exists an end to existence. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

There were gods and goddesses because there were humans.\nSo the plague was not just a problem that humans faced but a problem for gods too.\nGods could cease to be if the disease obliterated the humans. Mutual survival\nwas paramount for both parties. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Plague, then, created a serious issue of meaning for a\ngod. If only humans get infected by a plague, and if these useful celestial\nbodies remained unaffected, then it was certainly a matter for concern for the\nfuture of the existence of gods and goddesses. Gods and goddesses being \u2018out\nthere\u2019 (in a space for gods) have no inherent purpose, no role or meaning\nwithout being able to make their impact on the life of humans. Hence, there is\na new plea by the gods: \u201cplease find a way out of this dilemma \u2013 we know you\nguys can indeed do this \u2013 because you created the plague and now must un-create\nit.\u201d It will be a mutual survival strategy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shanthikumar Hettiarachchi 10 April 2020<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Occasional Paper 4 Inspired by the The\u00a0N\u0101sad\u012bya S\u016bkta\u00a0(after the incipit\u00a0n\u00e1 \u00e1sat, or “not the non-existent”), also known as the\u00a0Hymn of Creation, is the 129th hymn of the 10th Mandala of the RgVeda\u00a0(10:129) In the beginning […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-719","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hettiviththi.lk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/719","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hettiviththi.lk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hettiviththi.lk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hettiviththi.lk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hettiviththi.lk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=719"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/hettiviththi.lk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/719\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":720,"href":"https:\/\/hettiviththi.lk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/719\/revisions\/720"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hettiviththi.lk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=719"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hettiviththi.lk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=719"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hettiviththi.lk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=719"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}