@TIinExile Hi TN, okay, this is how I would offer my response. It comes not from any hasty perusal of literature, I did not do it then, and I did not it now -- in fact, took your words at face value and issued a corrigendum on that factual point on my post. But they come from a deeply...
@TIinExile ...considered view of things over decades of knowing/living a reality, just like millions of others, and you could spare some space in your mind and heart for it, if you do have that space. There exist multiple tracks here, in plain view. Tying them up is the lore related to...
@TIinExile ...Vishnu, which provides the primary mythic material here. Now, in Vaishnavite lore, it is natural that the deity's ineffable primacy is what is centralised...and hence Bali (and his Daitya lineage...before him Virochana, AND Prahlad) are shown in aspects of total devotion.
@TIinExile But even the simplest view of how mythic lore comes to be shows us how they change/mutate. It's not an unreasonable conclusion that Vishnu himself comes to be a supreme deity at a later stage, at a time when the Puranas are getting into their complete form. And that the conflict
@TIinExile ...between the devas and asuras and other classes of beings such as the daityas and danavas harks back to a more ancient stock -- a more properly Vedic/pre-Vedic lore, a mirror image of which you can see in the ancient Iranian myths. Where devas are the nasty guys with horns on
@TIinExile ...their heads, and causing strife to the virtuous asuras (rendered as ahura, in Avestan). No precise historical signature can be attached to any. Which is what gives us our infinitely mutable, morphing stock of mythic lore. And how it has worked over the millennia is by...
@TIinExile ...imparting a balance between opposites, an integrative effect, over an unstable field. The Shaivite and Vaishnavite sides used to be in utter conflict at one time. How does myth respond? By INTEGRATING them, by producing fused figures like Shankaranarayana or Harihara...
@TIinExile ...indeed, going further than that, by actually having them in sexual union and producing progeny! It's an infinitely creative gene of the human imagination, and it has always worked to affirm something. Vishnu in one instance, something else in some other. Now, coming to the...
@TIinExile ...figure of Bali, what do we see? A kind of widely dispersed veneration of the figure, with strong instances in Gujarat, Maharashtra...and now, Kerala. There are footprints visible much further afield too. It is a point worth considering why a Daitya figure attracts so much...
@TIinExile ...nostalgia and devotion, when the assigned divinity is clearly that of Vishnu. (Okay, breaking here to ask your hordes to dismount and have some yak milk chai or whatever their poison is. They seem a bit skittish and indecisive 😄 they have consecrated you as their Vishnu, and
@TIinExile and I don't wish to hurt their belief system, but they could decide if they want to rejoice at someone fleeing or listen to actual conversation. I'm sorry, I don't do 280-character snark.) Okay, returning, why this veneration of a Daitya. It's quite clear. Among all the avataras
@TIinExile ...it is clear that Vamana produces the most ambivalent responses. Because the apportioning of right or wrong, or good and evil, is specified with the least clarity there. Whether with Prahlad or Bali, the first indeed enthroned via a previous avatara, there is clearly virtue.
@TIinExile And yet, Vishnu intervenes on the side of the devas and dethrones. No obvious moral corrective can be seen there. If at all there are flaws in the character of the daityas, the very same myths assign the same flaws in abundance to Indra. So what we have is a curious stock of
@TIinExile myth where Vishnu is on one side and the people largely are drawn to the other. And in places where such veneration happens, a delicate and harmonious balance obtains between this veneration and that towards Vishnu in other forms. That is precisely the beauty of myth. It gives
@TIinExile ...you a way where even opposing values coexist. That is the situation in Kerala too. Now, I do thank you for taking the trouble over a day to refer to the relevant literature on Trivikrama literature, but have you considered the implications of being in grievous error in the
@TIinExile ...very spirit of your social media exertions in your self-anointed role? There are surely better ways of having conversations on religion and culture, which naturally includes disputes, than to try and be a wrecking ball on living Indian cultures? It is actually quite irrelevant
@TIinExile ...which part of the Puranas formed when, and drew from what historical antecedents. The assignation of a Dravidian identity on Bali is an accident of history, but it carries over a resonance from the older lore, and has real value. What you are seeing is the creative gene of
@TIinExile ...myth in action. It's a beautiful thing. What it affirms is equality, harmony and prosperity for all. (The same things that made Indra jealous because he could presumably not provide those.) There's absolutely nothing negative about those values. Sometimes, also do try respect.
@TIinExile And you may or may not be young enough to be my nephew, but I doubt such a kinship exists. Naranam matula...you know the phrase. No sign of that is visible. But happy Onam all the same :))
