The Birth of Skanda
Did you know old India had a deity dedicated to men who reject conventional marriage in preference for the love of another man?
He still maintains his popularity in the South under various names, and yet this original association has largely been swept away - the legacy of a Judeo-Christian ‘moral’ sensibility introduced to the Subcontinent by zealous Victorian missionaries, but now perpetuated by modern India’s politicised conservatism.
However, it is still possible to hear the old myths that have survived the determined efforts to censor them.
And this one is a wonder!
There was once a time when a megalomaniac fiend called Taraka the Deceiver contrived to conjure a great and dreadful power with which to not only overwhelm the world, but disintegrate the very fabric of the universe. And this by first enduring ten centuries of extreme asceticism.
For the first hundred years, Taraka balanced on one leg with arms held high, staring directly into the sun until his eyes melted into dirty ghee. For the next, he teetered on just one toe. He survived a century on only water, then on nothing more than air. For a hundred years he floated on the surface of the sea. For another, he stood motionless on scalding desert sands.
Through the blistering heat of a century of summers Taraka sat naked surrounded by fierce flames until his skin charred and split. He passed a hundred years balanced on his head, followed by another on his hands. And finally, he spent a hundred years dangling upside-down from a tree by his toe nails, his demonic lungs poisoned by the acrid smoke of bonfires lit beneath.
The result was a searing, violent force as brilliant as a thousand noonday suns. Just as his cruel heart had intended, this now burst from every rotted pore of his body to bring calamity to men, gods and galaxies alike. Taraka’s dreadful havoc had begun.
It was the owls and the asses that first began to wail, soon joined by the jackals, whose breath burst into flames. And then the cows began to weep as their milk turned red and toxic.
The mountains began to quake until all the forests fell. The quarters blazed until the oceans’ waters simmered on their shores. Then came such storms that the skies were torn apart with thunderbolts, the cosmos with incendiary comets.
Men and gods alike were in despair, for surely there was no hero who could defeat such an enemy as this. No hero, that is, except a child sired by Shiva.
However, the deity of the jhankri mountain-shamans was unable to oblige. Despite the chaos being wrought around him, the Lord of Yoga remained in deep meditation on his snowy peak of Kailash and could not be roused.
Yet Shiva had to be interrupted, for all life derives from loving intimacy, and with Shiva’s own desire for pleasure so long withdrawn all existence was now threatened with extinction.[1]
The gods therefore had but one choice: to call upon the services of Kama - the handsome Bringer of Joys, the God of Sensual Love, the Demolisher of Peace - who none, not even the great Shiva himself, could possibly resist …
Upon alighting high in the Himalayas, Kama dismounted his parrot and climbed onto the Makara - a mythical crocodilian creature, traditional symbol of the authentic tantric path for it represents the inner reality of all things, the truth beyond ordinary understanding.
Kama thus began his approach to the meditating Shiva, holding aloft a flag that bore his emblem of the fish - the smaradhvaja - sign of restless material reality, undomesticated intimacy, the very Force of Nature itself: Shakti.
Nor had Kama made his journey to the mountains alone, for his path was heralded by a beautiful adolescent named Vasanta, Spirit of the Brilliant Season: Springtime.
His body draped in yellow gossamer, Vasanta’s every step caused flowers to bloom, trees to blossom, wild peacocks to dance like noonday clouds. The air through which he moved brightened with the call of the kokila cuckoo, symbol of Spring and Love. And everywhere the mellow hum of dancing dragonflies and drowsy bees, drunk with the flavour of his perfume.
As Kama and his pretty chum grew close, the mountains began to throb with the fervour of desire. The flowers oozed their pollen. Shiva’s narcotic datura plants eased through the earth to edge their path. Birds and animals fell into a frenzy of helpless mating.
The shape-shifting Apsara sky-nymphs erupted into erotic dance. The Gandharvas - irresistibly handsome men, heroic in sexual dalliance, who hold the secrets of men’s most intimate pleasures - burst into seductive song.
Naturally Shiva’s female self, Parvati, could not remain unmoved. Even before the exquisite Kama and Vasanta came into view, the beautiful goddess - skin dusted with camphor, skin soft as mango shoots - found her lips moistening, her breasts swelling as round as scented kadamba blossoms, her breath quickening to pants and sighs.
Kama therefore drew taut his bowstring of pollen-laden bees, seekers of the nectar of worldly delights - and let his scented, passion-inducing flower-arrows fly.
The first dart was arabinda: the pure white lotus, symbol of dedicated intention. This Kama aimed at Shiva’s broad chest to incite intense excitement, for this flower-arrow was called Harsana, That which Arouses a Bristling Erection.
Secondly, jonesia ashoka: the ‘sorrowless tree’, symbol of love and the cure for grief. This Kama aimed at Shiva’s lips to make him tremble with the thrill of sensual expectation, for this flower-arrow was called Rochana, That which Stimulates Deep Passion.
Thirdly, amra: the mango flower, symbol of heartfelt wishes fulfilled. This Kama aimed at Shiva’s handsome head, to make him lose his mind with ardour, for this flower-arrow was called Mohana, That which Sexually Infatuates.
The fourth was navamallika: the heady jasmine shrub, said to induce iccha, enflamed desire. This Kama aimed at Shiva’s eyes, that he might see things of which he was not normally aware, for this flower-arrow was called Shosana, That which Removes All Limitation.
Lastly, Kama let fly nilopala: the aphrodisiac blue lotus, said to heighten awareness and quicken the production of semen. This Kama let fall “wherever it pleased” - a euphemism for the divine manhood - that Shiva might lose himself in unbounded ecstasy, for this final floral dart was called Marana, That by which one is Slain by Love.
s these five arrow struck Shiva, the great mountain deity not merely roused from his mediation, but with his sushma sexual energy so kindled that he was already near maddened with erotic longing. Shining like molten gold, he reached out to clasp Parvati in his arms - and with equal hunger they united. So it is that Shiva is called Kameshvara, Lord of Passion.
Shiva is omniscient, of course, and knew all too well the true source of his awakened ardour. Such was its intensity that it could only be kamaja - born of Kama, who is also known as Shukravahin, He who Causes Semen to Flow.
So it was that even as Shiva and his beloved began athletic love, the God of the Mountains partially opened his third eye - the Agni ko Mukh in Nepali, the Mouth of Fire - to scold the audacious intruder. The beam of light released was so blinding that it resembled the fire of the Final Dissolution.[1]
And thus Rati’s premonition came true as Kama, the exquisite God of Sensual Love, was in a moment reduced to nothing more than a mist of perfumed ashes …
Although many miles apart, Rati felt Kama’s incineration and collapsed to the ground, tearing out her hair in anguish.[1]
“Without the Pleasures of Love in the world, what remedy will there be for mankind’s suffering?” she wept. “Without Love, bulls will abandon their cows, stallions their mares, and bees their flowers. Couples will separate, families will fragment, communities will collapse - and life will lose all meaning.”
Shiva was so moved by Rati’s grief that he cast his ‘nectarine soma[2] glance’ upon the pile of perfumed ashes. He thereby not merely restored Kama to life, but, in compassionate recompense, rendered him greater, more powerful and more pervasive than before.
Shiva had afforded Kama new life, to stir loving passion in all people in the form of an incorporeal deity called Ananga, The Discarnate, or Aniruddha, the Ungovernable and Unobstructed. For Shiva had dissipated the God of Sensual Love into flowers, songbirds, tastes, scents, music, upon the breeze and even into crows, that mankind separated from their loved ones might ache with longing when reminded of them through their senses.
Thus Kama is known as Smara, Loving Recollection; Hrcchaya, He who Abides in the Heart; and Samsaraguru, the Teacher of the World.
Shiva also gave the reborn god a place in his own heart, at which Parvati rejoiced, and together the divine couple made love for an ecstatic one thousand divine years, being equal to ten earthly millennia.[3]
However, Shiva’s impulsive incineration of Kama had not resolved the problem of the demonic Taraka and his ravaging of the universe. In addition, Shiva now found himself to be in such a state of extreme udita, sexual arousal, that he was payasvat - so full of ‘potent juice’ that he was overflowing.
Just as there had been but one who could arouse him, so there was now only one who could resolve Shiva’s irrepressible arousal: the mighty Agni, God of Fire, symbol of the ‘inner light’ that inspires humankind to explore beyond the obvious.
Agni therefore willingly leapt forwards to kneel before the great lord’s linga and, as theVamana Purana describes, “swallowed like a man tortured by thirst swallows water”, whilst delivering Shiva to what the Skanda Purana unsurprisingly describes as “supreme bliss”.[4]
However, Agni’s bulging mouth was unable to contain Shiva’s fiery, jasmine-perfumed seed.[5] It squirted between Fire God’s straining lips and landed far below them in the River Ganges.
But even Mother Ganga could not bear the powerful emission and began to boil so hard and fast that she was in threat of complete evaporation. Her only choice was to cast the divine discharge ashore at a forest of tall, white-flowering kaasha grass, where the city of Varanasi now stands.
There Shiva’s semen glowed so brightly that it caught the attention of the Krittika, six ‘sky-faring’ wise-women who were accomplished in the profound meditative practices ofTantra Yoga, which had afforded them boldly independent minds.
In the chill of the evening air, these six sister matriarchs sat around to warm themselves by the mysterious shining deposit - which promptly took the opportunity to seep through their unsuspecting buttocks.
However, once imbued with the women’s shakti, the sneaky seed could no longer be contained and broke out of their bellies in fiery sparks to form before their startled eyes into a child: Skanda, the Spurt of Semen …
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[1] Although Holi is considered an especially joyful annual festival, during which conventions are broken, friendships renewed and old enmities laid to rest, in some districts women still sing dirges and laments on the day to venerate the grief of Rati at the loss of her beloved Kama. Rati is also called upon to oversee the tantric rite of appeasement, called Shanti, which is employed to mitigate in the practitioner the results of unwise action and the disquiet caused by bad dreams.
[2] Soma is both the term for a consciousness-expanding plant preparation and a synonym for semen. The mythical keepers of soma are the Gandharvas - irresistibly handsome, musical men, heroic in sexual dalliance, born of the scent of flowers upon which they feed, who possess the secrets of male pleasure.
[3] Their union took place on the shore of Lake Sipra, where it was witnessed by Shiva’s taurine vehicle, Nandi, who stood guard for the duration. The divine bull later recounted all he had seen and heard, including the 84,000,000 sexual positions undertaken by the Supreme Couple. It is said that it was these ‘asana’, only 729 of which are feasible in the human form, that were condensed and recorded to subsequently become the basis of what we now know as the Kamasutra, the ‘Thread of Desire’.
Legend also attributes the text’s original compilation to one Dattaka, who, at a whim, was changed into his female form by Shiva. When he was later made male again, he found himself fully conversant in the sexual habits, arts and needs of both sexes, which he proceeded to record in honour of Shiva.
[4] There are over half a dozen different accounts of this myth from all across India. In an 11th-century version found in the Kathasaritsagara, Shiva summons Agni, who has taken the form of a crow, and orders him to swallow his semen.
Inevitably, a far more conservative version is now being propagated that credits Skanda’s birth to the sparks of fire released from Shiva’s third eye when Kama tried to rouse him from meditation, thereby avoiding all reference to Shiva’s intimacy with Agni and the generative Spurt of Semen.
[5] Hence his name Krshanureta, The Fire-seeded One; and by necessity Rjumushka, He who has Strong Testicles.
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Skanda thereby came into being through the interaction of Desire (Kama), Consciousness (Shiva), Earth (Parvati), Fire (Agni), Water (Ganges) and Space (the Krittika).
Indeed, such was the force of his miraculous creation that it rippled through the matrix of the universe, causing hot and cold, north and south, male and female, and all contrary pairs to momentarily reverse.
Parvati knew the child that had almost been hers was born, for as she sat quietly on Mount Kailash her breasts began to run with milk. Shiva therefore sent the irresistibly handsome Gandharvas to discover the fate of his ‘splendid emission’.
They soon found Skanda in the care of the Six Sister,s in the forest of kasha grass beside the river. The Gandharvas gave honour to the Krittika, then wrapped themselves around the glorious boy - who in just six days had become a full-grown, light-filled adolescent - and swept him northwards, to the Himalayas.
Upon delivery to Mount Kailash, Shiva looked upon the young man with wonder. He drew Skanda close to clasp him in his arms and kiss him tenderly.
‘So now, my beloved son,’ Shiva said, ‘dance!’
So it was that on the seventh day of his life Skanda danced, ‘dispelling the anguish of all’ - whereupon the entire universe danced with him.
The impact on Taraka, whose cruel self-interest had threatened to destabilise the foundation of all existence, was such a sudden loss of all his power that he disintegrated into a fine dust and was scattered by the winds.
And thus the stability of the universe was restored, but now free of all danger, all violence- and all thorns.
This account of Skanda’s birth is told in the Puranas [for example, see Skanda Purana V - I:34:60-66], whilst the Mahabharata makes reference to Shiva “whose semen was offered as an oblation into the mouth of Agni”.
And yet in today’s fast-Westernising India a newly puritanised version is preferred, which describes Skanda as having been born to Shiva and Parvati by wholly unremarkable means.
New generations in India are thereby losing significant depths of their ancient culture and an entire universe of philosophical insight.
Skanda has been revered in India for over 3,000 years, with a wide variety of literature dedicated to his mythology and even great kings taking his name.
Skanda is commonly depicted with a peacock, traditional symbol of Impatient Desire and India’s monsoon, the season of Fertility and Love. Peacocks also represent the internal shamanic ‘journeying’ of the jhankri in the foothills of the Himalaya, the enlightenment found in ‘piercing’ ordinary boundaries.
Peacocks are also known as snake-eaters in India. With such a vahana or ‘divine vehicle’ under his command, Skanda protects Nagas, mythical serpent guardians of the Knowledge that leads to Wisdom.
Such is Skanda’s enduring popularity that he goes by at least 30 additional names.
As Guha, the Mysterious One, he holds insightful conversations with Shiva in certainTantra-agamas. As Kumara, he is the virile Adolescent. As Kanta, the Handsome, he is the god of Male Beauty.
In South India, where the period between the waning moon in October and the full moon in November is dedicated to him, Skanda is better known as Murugan, the Boy; Alahan, the Beautiful One; Karttikeya, Son by the Krittika; or Subrahmaniam, the Beloved of Seekers of Wisdom. This last name refers to Skanda as divine patron of the Learning of Arcane Wisdom, for he represents the understanding of hidden meanings.
Shrines dedicated to Skanda are often found in the courtyard of Shiva temples. However, sadhana focussed on Skanda is normally undertaken in forests or open fields, sometimes involving Veriyaattu ritual trance-dancing in Tamil districts.
In Calcutta, where he is more commonly called Kartik, Skanda still takes pride of place beside the Great Goddess during the annual Durga Puja celebrations.
Having been born of the Six Sisters, Skanda is said to see the image of a mother in every woman. He has therefore chosen to spend eternity as a bachelor - hence his name Kumaraswami, the Unmarried God. He is traditionally said to be ‘wedded’ instead to his troop of celestial soldiers, symbolised by his lance - hence his name Senapati, Virile Husband of the Army.
It is perhaps for this reason that sadhana focussed on Skanda is not undertaken by women.
Skanda is thus especially regarded as the patron of men who reject conventional marriage in preference for the love of another man. Just as with the ancient warrior-cults of Crete, Sparta, Thebes and Chalcis, male intimacy is still shared during initiation into his cult. And this that a devotee might, like Skanda himself, become shukraja - a light-filled, ‘semen-produced son’ of Shiva.
It is therefore always in intimate groups that male shaiva tantrikas gather for shared Skanda sadhana, mindfully employing his symbolism as a means to overcome internal chaos and mental darkness.
https://davidcharlesmanners.wordpress.com/2014/06/12/the-birth-of-skanda-part-1/
