Mahabharata – 56

by 

Sankar Mukherjee

&

Dr Ramesh Chandra Mukhopadhyaya
                                            AdiParva.

Transformation of Seshnaga

May be betting even when one is in the right is rather bad. Committing fraud is however subject to punishment.  Vinata joined in the betting to overpower Kadru her sister.She must pay for this. She becomes a servant of her sister. Fine but did not Kadru commit a fraud? She asked her children to cover the tail of the celestial horse with their own bodies so that the tail of the horse looked black. It should be noted that quite a few among the snakes did not agree to obey their mother. Kadru was enraged .She cursed all his children that they must be killed in times to come. Be that as it may quite a few snakes obeyed their mother & fraud paid divident to Kadru. For a long time Kadru owned Vinata as her slave. Does it not mean that the world today is run on fraud? It might take ages together before the fraud is punished. However with the birth of Garuda the curse fallen on earth & the man kind will be dispelled. So the wise among men are praying for Garuda to incarnate.

The curse of Kadru however could not scare the righteous among the snakes. The eldest among them Ananata or Seshanaga left hearth & home & plunged in penance. He laboured hard till he became skin & bone. Then the creator of the Universe Lord Brahma appeared before him .He told Ananta that by force of penance he had conquered the inner world. He had no longer envy or jealousy. But Brahma told Ananta that the penance of his has great power & force. The great energy generated from his pious person might burn the world. It might dethrone Indra the king of gods. Brahma added that the energy had better be use to do good to the world. Seshanaga did not want to remain with his snake brothers who are full of envy & jealousy. He however was ready to obey Brahma the creator. Brahma said that there was instability in the earth. And the earth must be given a support so that  the earth does not suffer from the assault from any external force. To that end the Seshnaga had better hold the earth on his head with thousand hoods. Seshnaga or Ananta readily accepted the task. But how could he enter into the entrails of the earth? Brahma said that the earth herself would give passage  to its entrails on its own. So it happened & Ananta went down the earth to hold the earth on its head so that the earth could perform its daily sojourn from dawn to dusk in the skies. At the instance of  Brahma Ananta became a good friend of Garuda.Seshnaga  was thus transformed into god.

The episode clearly states that through penance & love for others one could become a god.