Book 1: The Great SamsaraA Chapter by Sawan
As Brahma, compassionate to all creatures, outshines the splendour of all the devas, so does the Buddha with all his splendour outshine the noble lords of earth.
10. " Oh devi, you are of excellent appearance, you who are illuminating all the regions like the morning star.” 2 Taken from “the Story of the Finding Release in Transmigration” Pv II.i
Sawan Gunasekera End of Prologue
Book 1: The Great Samsara Chapter 1: A New Order At one time, sometime after the zenith of its power had well past, this human civilization was invaded by a very powerful pantheon of Devatas, or Gods. By this time the humans had become haughty, and malicious and conniving. They had developed a society based on lack of inward civility and luxurious depravity, distaste, loathing, mocking affection and unconcern for others, and the poor. A good comparison to these humans would be the fictitious inhabitants of the planet of Naboo, described in Star Wars. These devas subdued and over a period of several centuries and millennia eventually enslaved the human populace, reducing them to mere chattel. In the beginning of this invasion the native host was treated with some measure of respect and cordiality, which the native host falsely and slightly reciprocated to some degree. But eventually open war broke out and the powerful group of devas easily triumphed. The Devas, transformed the entire region into a slave colony afterwards, for the sake of mining the special clays and extremely elusive precious stones which Brahma protected and hid. Brahma hid them, since they were his, an ancient gift bestowed upon him by previous Brahmas in the very distant past, a part of his inheritance that he shared with mankind who inhabited Puriyaya, as that vast country was then known as at that time. By the time the humans had lost their extremely unusual war against the devas, the humans were a completely different people. Their civil society had to be
reformed, even if in a severe way according to the devas. It had become
ensnared in cruelty, malice and mass deception with fraudulent business
practices and friendships, mired in treachery, and fake marriage arrangements
and engagements. But the practice of pomp and splendor had continued into this
period of time from when the civilization was at its peak and masked these
problems. Particularly the practice of bestowing lavish, and partially decayed
treasures, and monies to their eldest male heir was of great importance. The
male heir, accustomed to royal treatment in this manner and from birth would
then be enabled to engage in business and financial transactions that protected
his wealth and immediate family from destitution. This extravagant lifestyle
helped propel himself from party to party, and one marital engagement to the
next. But now, things were different. This patriarchal culture that had
dominated most, though not all of the more than 16,000 cities was steadily
demolished everywhere in a state of mass hysteria, both suppressed and caused
by the direct presence of the devas. It was replaced by the rabble, and
strongmen, some ruthless, who vied for political and criminal, but not
legitimate financial power. The humans were separated into groups based upon
their caste by birth and occupation. Each of the more than 16,000 cities were represented in the senate and lead by a single Devata, oligarchy of devas, or in some rare cases, larger groups of Devatas who were consigned direct absolute jurisdiction over their own city and neighboring countryside. Initially an extremely small group of humans were selected, based upon their allegiance and birth into the most highest, and affluent families who had controlled the entire human civilization since even its inception to serve as representatives of their people as senators in the senate. These families had been responsible for much of the genius of the human civilization and the atrocities it had committed, including those against the poorer tribes of tree devas. These rich families, mostly unknown to most people residing in the common cities, consisted actually of humans, as well as some nonhumans. There were certain devas thinly disguised as humans in certain families, particularly few extremely wealthy and powerful tree devas living as humans who had made a secret pact to enslave other tree devas, as means of subsisting on others. The purpose of enslaving the other groups of tree devas and Nagas at that time, remains largely a mystery to most of the world.
Chapter 2: The Old Order But from what I know, it was largely to harvest their intelligence for technological advances and harvesting the clays and stone in the riverbed of Ganges, as well forced association for the sake of material gain, power and wealth. They had for a long time been considered as a means of providing entertainment for the poor rich, many of whom were deranged from excessive drinking, and large segments of which were mentally ill as a result and good house servants as well, much like house elfs would be considered as being like in the Harry Potter novels written by J.K. Rowling. A lot of greed was centered specifically around finding the new locations of more precious stones and very valuable clays, because old ones were excavated completely, and in matter of weeks, though it might take months, and perhaps years in some cases to make sure they dug everything out. The mass industrial mining of the rare gems, and procuring them for material gain and thrill was considered at one time heretical outside marriage proposals made for the first wife, pottery and religious practices. It eventually became a commonality, particularly by the time the civil wars between the tribes of tree devas, Nagas, and Yakkhas amongst themselves and the humans had broken out and past. This was sometime shortly after the zenith of the civilization had past, several hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of years. This industrial mining involved bullying, demanding callously with taunts, anger and harsh words and expressions of cruelty, towards, of all beings, devas! Loud accusations and cruel gestures were made towards the tree deva or Naga and at the worst times, jabbing their bodies, hitting them with sticks or a pole, or dumping cold water on them, as they walked onto a stage on the riverbank or an extension like a pier, if the company was making an exotic show out of it, or wanted to use the devas as divers. When it came to finding new locations along an enormous riverbank, with several miles at least of crowded stages Yakkhas were harder to work with, because they were crafty, and prone to getting very angry. Nagas were difficult to work with as well, because they were ominous, of large build and usually of beautiful stature and unusually calm. It’s hard even today to find an ugly Naga. On some occasions however things would turn out badly for the humans. The Nagas, if threatened too cruelly, were not wholly deprived of their celestial powers and would transform into an enormous godly Serpent during the show unexpectedly and to the horror and awe of those who beheld it. The Naga Serpent could be at least several meters wide and at least hundreds if not thousands of feet in length and would be endowed with a single cobra head, as it was on several important memorable occasions, or two or more heads, but typically no more than 20. If the Serpent had grown into adulthood hated by many, it would usually not have hood, but be black in color and with single head, endowed with an enormous temper and horribly vicious venom. Today, Europeans would call the kind of Naga Serpent I last described a Basilisk Serpent. The Naga Serpent would thrash violently, smashing people in the stands if it was really mad, and rise into the air, and make aggressive bouncing and diving motions in the Ganges. It would do so for many long human minutes, if not terrible hours, weeks, months and years, decades even, and even in some instances for thousands of human years before flying off. If it was so pissed off as to actually eat the spectators or rampage the city, which it could easily destroy on these occasions, the survivors found this all the more reason to hate the Gods, whom they had grown to despise, at least in their hearts, and very openly, at these shows, for this sort of treachery which they could add to their folklore and mythology about bad and evil Devas and Gods. At the worst times in their long history they would use sacrificial divers, oft taking a child of dark skin, with no manifested celestial abilities aside from ancient cultural ties to a celestial body of devas, and push him into the Ganges. If he or she could dive to retrieve the sacred minerals and clays, they would not shoot arrows, but if he did not dive immediately, he was immediately shot with arrows, sometimes hundreds, or thousands even, directed at his chest and face. It was extremely tragic. Many of those beings went to bad destinations, typically hell worlds, to repent for the sin of killing a being who might have been an extremely young deva experiencing bad kamma, or distant young relative or descendants of devas. Often the child sacrificed would go to hell themselves. They too carried bad kamma and were usually endowed with the horrible knowledge that if they had been born into the human world and tried to transform into a deva, and even succeeded during their wretched trial in the water, and failed to procure the valuables or stood still for but a moment for the sake of greedy success, sacrificing themselves or carrying out revenge against devas, for or against their own poor families and the archers and the citizens of Puriyaya, they had committed a great evil for trying to, or succeeding in sacrificing a divine being experiencing a state of intense fear, and hatred even if it were themselves, to archers. At other times of less cruelty these riotous hateful mobs made their expressions of mistrust, resentment, loathing and fear towards the poor downtrodden devas while often showing support towards a large and able bodied man who would work as a negotiator. When the cities were small, in the distant past, this procuring of rare clays and stones became a trade, and was abandoned as a common practice by villagers because the city people were becoming feeble, and lazy, or weak minded, and the river became so, very wide and deep. In the even more distant past before that it was once quite shallow and not difficult for a woman to walk across and find what she wanted. But this sort of thing, was a small trade. Often the negotiator was a fully matured Deva of the Four Great Kings, who had apprenticed his son. The son’s task at this very early stage in his life was to become skilled and finding and eventually procuring the special clays, which were at that time so much valuable than the stones, and also the stones as well, for the people of Puriyaya at behest of Brahma which was his dictated will, to share the exquisite sacred treasures with the good people of Puriyaya at that time.
Chapter 3: The Mining and Sale of Great Holy Gold and Great Holy Precious Stones This gradually faded away. Later, the negotiators were usually completely unrelated, rude and arrogant. Nonetheless, task was to protect the deva from excessive insults and harassment and impatiently harangue the tree deva into indicating into indicating where these sacred treasures were, showing new locations for sacred sediment deposits. These sacred sediment deposits had become thick and built up from time to time after being swept and tumbled down the vast, deep, and sometimes raging Ganges which began flooding frequently around that time, and showing proof of its immensely beautiful and valuable variety of treasures to the very greedy and offended eyes of those common city folk who were not disciples of the Supreme Buddhas, the Noble Ones. The negotiator, usually working with an adult tree deva by this time or man who might have psychic powers based on his heritage or ethnicity, but sometimes also with headstrong adolescents hated by the crowd or teenagers, not a male slave more forced to drown than to live, because of the old stories, might then give his pay there and that would be enough, or mark him as completed for his payroll, if this were a private company involving less dangerous shows and auctions, or no shows at all and level of established trust. But in other cases, especially if someone got mad, or made a high bid, or it was the nature of that group of people at that time, to behave in such a way the negotiator would goad him, or coax him, depending on his temperament into exhibiting his celestial powers and diving into the river. If he wanted to escape then he could, but at other times in history they would use nets, or even special expensive technologies, procured by angry, hateful, high ranking devas from more secure heavenly abodes to attack the tree deva, and force him into submission, or prevent his escape. If he were young and still gaining experience his parents and relations might prevent his escape prevent his escape too, as it was trial to bring him up among the poor beings and considered a mild act of retribution and as well as comical expression intended to help improve or properly fulfill his rites of passage. But during more better times, and with the right deva, if the tree deva was fully grown, shabbily dressed and behaved like an otter and his wife were to stop him from escaping after getting in the water, then was considered much more pleasing to everyone’s hilarity and amusement. She would appear on the opposite bank, and perhaps wave to the crowd, sometimes all aglow with auras, even if her husband had appeared as a shabbily dressed man at the show. It was always more fun to work with a fully grown deva during these better times, than placing uncertain hopes on some young kid. But those tree devas usually worked with good, benevolent and kind companies, which catered to a more friendly and nicer crowd. But if the negotiator got angry, having a bad day, or something important changed in the company, then all bets for a good time were off. The adult Tree Deva, usually the male head of the household aloof, and disinterested would start working for cruel men, and after being harassed for some time, which rarely involved a swim, would shadily indicating the proper spot, perhaps in coincidence also with any potential buyers horoscropes combined, would do what was necessary to earn his small sack of gold and leave, returning to the forests or going into the marshlands. The tree devas usually lived in the outskirts of the city or near the river, typically on the opposite bank which was uninhabited, and chose to make an independent living this way, sometimes grieving for better fortunes, or the loss of some relative, however far back in the past to the wrath of their own clansmen or battle with the mankind of Pariyaya, sometimes acting as guardians of the cities and the countryside, considering themselves as the real gods of these times of they felt some people in the cities still worshipped and loved, at least in their hearts. But some of these tree devas whom might have fallen into debt while living, or being born into family living for several generations as humans and sold into slavery by poor relatives and used as hated captives to be sacrificed in the river for whatever malicious purpose they desired, including the worship of other, gods. Now perhaps the spectators and buyers would inwardly revile the negotiator, for his heretical occupation, as dictated by the ancient Brahmanic vedas that were no longer followed and ancient abandoned enormous temples that were hardly maintained or cleaned, left in a dismal conditions or totally unused altogether. But they didn’t care outwardly, because they needed the gems, and riverbed clays and desperately too! While machinery was used from time to time, often human divers or even the deva himself (rarely herself) would retrieve the clays and precious stones, usually as little as a handful, if that, to as much as sacks and sacks these extremely precious gifts from Brahma. They would be melted down, considered by Gods and the devas in the high deva realms to be sacrilegious and a cruel deed. Rarely during that extremely long expanse of time predating 40 expanded lifespans of Brahma, sometimes they would find a place where they could mine mega tons of riverbed clays imbued with special and sacred qualities, and mega tons of crystals and special gems, enormous rectangular slabs of them, excavated with pulleys and machines as though the enterprise were a city fishery. There at those times, each piece might have looked to have weighed at least one mega ton or more, and brought dripping, out of the river. There were triple mega tons and mega tons of fat rectangular slabs of gold, silver, bronze, zinc, platinum, and copper, 100 percent pure, and pounds and pounds of the most rarest elements found in heavens and on earth. Mega ton pieces of rubies, sapphires, emeralds, diamonds were harvested, as well as big fat crying and sweating pearls, some as large as boulders that could be carved easily into small pieces, and other fine, special rocks, considered extremely rare if found outside the Himalayas. Some were so unusual that they were only found in the Ganges, or not anywhere else on earth. The strangest minerals were considered so bizarre that they were thought to have been barred from all except the most highest and special heavens at that time. At even those times, and those other times, what they found could be sold to crowds of people almost always by auction to the highest bidder, a heretical act.
Chapter 4: The Devas’ Sacrificed Oracles and Human Sacrifices to Devas At the time the secret pact was made by the rich, intelligent and powerful tree devas families with mankind, they has felt they really had no choice, and were pressed to do so by their relatives to extort money, power and time from the humans, who were constantly making technological advances. But, they eventually betrayed the other tree devas, giving away their location during battles, and sharing where they made their residence. These families lived for generations as humans in shame, experiencing banal human sense pleasure accentuated by mild divine bliss, in the company of the extremely wealthy and generous human families who had helped them find a new home among them. For tens of thousands of years, the wealthy class of relatively unknown elitists typically engaged in intermarrying among themselves only. They propagated many children among the common people as well, as means of supplanting the general populace from disrupting their lifestyle and business affairs. Before I get back to what became of them and the dissolution of the deva senate, I would like to consider some the main reasons for why the devas invaded, the faiths they propagated to the human citizens of more than 16,000 cities, their leader’s origins and how they invaded the country of Puriyaya. * * * The devas claimed superiority over the humans for a multitude of reasons, but chiefly because they had formed a secret religion worshipping its founder, a rival God who had tried to supplant Brahma's hopes and passions in the past. I will talk more about these devas and their founder, now. At the time the devas had already taken over control of the cities, the founder of this religion was well past his prime in deva years. He was actually in the process of getting quite old, and quickly. But even then, as earlier in that life, he had extremely unusual abilities and extremely high levels of power and divine bliss. The belief that he propagated was straightforward and relatively simple. Upon birth in the deva world, as soon as the divine beings internal and external divine faculties were developed to start honing skills and concentrations in meditations pertaining to cultivating more power, pleasure and happiness. This was his straightforward recommendation as a guru to all devas, the advice that made him so powerful and famous. Of course, this wasn't a new concept, and had its advocates in the past, though more rarely than you would think. The meditations and whimsical inclinations of the divine beings, he said was meant so that all, or a significant amount of their mature powers were meant to be channeled into making more powers, creative thought, creative dress, and above all, aside from power itself, bliss, euphoria and rapture. The next step, which he adamantly imposed upon all his followers in the heavenly worlds, was to actually come to the Nimmanarati Deva world, leaving their heavenly abode of birth, which ever that might have been, abandoned, forever. The next step involved invading the human territories of Puriyaya, and taking control of the river mining operations so that they could very quickly and directly enhance their heavenly abodes. It was specifically the river clay that they needed, the river clays and obscure minerals that they needed the most. The invading devas thought that the humans were so stupid and foolish for getting so involved and obsessed with mining treasures and sacred metals, gems and pearls, when there was something much more valuable in the river. So for the humans it was ordered that outside of religious practice on some occasions, and religious & state sanctioned pottery by official potters and people near death, the seizing of river clays from the Ganges was banned, dubbed heresy, and punishable by death. Only those humans under the direct authority of the city deva(s) could continue to gather more river clay, and lots of it, working very hardly and desperately in dangerous conditions as the Ganges continued to get deeper and deeper from excavation. By also directing a much smaller proportion of what was found in the river to the humans, if anything, that would ensure that they maintained psychological control over the region and superiority over its people and native devas, including Brahma himself. It was believed by the invading devas that Brahma himself resided on the banks of Ganges river nearby, with his Host of Brahma Devas. The founder of the secret deva religion based a large amount of his power over his followers and his own actions over hatred and jealousy towards Brahma. Brahma appeared to have far more power, glory and might, and thus, should be hated, according to this rogue deva who very openly challenged Brahma as the leader and central power and authority in the universe. Now, with his followers, he wanted to do battle with Brahma, and he thought the best way to provoke Brahma to show himself as a bad leader was to control and abuse the people of Puriyaya and steal as much river clay as he could before the battle. In the meantime, the followers of this rogue deva leader, each of them, and groups them, controlling one of the 16,000 cities, were to establish their own separate religion, in each city. All of these separate religions were meant to disrupt and confuse Brahma’s mind. Also other devas became followers of these religions. In the case with these religions, the deva or group of devas who had inherited control of one of the 16,000 cities were the sacred beings of worship. Their followers, by their forcible edict, were the human inhabitants of the city under their control and the nearby vicinity of the city, including the local tree devas if possible. So, this law was dealt out to all 16,000 of the cities, and each had their own separate religion, for the most part. Perhaps 2 or more cities would worship one deva, but that’s a different story. To clarify what I had just said, the rogue deva had devas followers, who worshipped him and who in groups or individually had to establish their own unique religion portraying themselves as living religious icons, in each, or several of the 16,000 cities forcibly using the human populace as worshippers. These religions propagated by devas for humans were each meant to have their own distinct rites and practices, separate from the divine religion that the devas practiced outside of the knowledge of the humans. Each religion for each city populace was considered distinct in it rituals and beliefs, and separate entities largely, than those practiced by humans in the other cities controlled by other deva followers of the rogue deva who had triumphed in the war. The rogue deva preached to his deva followers that supreme final end of the procuring and use of the river clays by the triumphant devas, and engaging in self-worship by indoctrinating humans to worship them and engage in idolatry was an immortal deathless state. According to the rogue deva this immortal deathless state was a sublime, clear and bright permanent heaven where sin was absent and the deva would be reunited with a better, higher and more just ethereal Supreme Brahma. Does this seem surprising? It shouldn’t come as a surprise, for mankind is ever in the pursuit of pleasure, and immortal states, and devas have a lot of power and might. This everlasting immortality, full of beauty and lustrous as the rogue deva leader, or sacred divine teacher as he considered by his followers, described it, would lead to permanent peace and salvation, and was meant exclusively for the divine beings who were his personal followers, not the humans who worshipped them. Sharing the presence of this secret sacred divine religion outside of the pantheon of devas who practiced it with the humans of Puriyaya and other humans in distant lands, was considered a sin, outside of marriage with a human or nonhuman. At different times, and throughout the year, there were festivals celebrating the religions of rival cities, and people would be forced from time to time, based on their knowledge what they had learned about the valor of their deva hosts, to choose whom they wanted to believe. If they admitted that they admired the valor of a deva from a different city, and viewed him or her as their God, then if they were not executed by beheading for treason, then they were banished, with their immediate family, to that city. In this way, the humans were forcibly enlisted as worshippers. This religions were so frightening, in part because of the presence of the devas, who enjoyed spreading the heavenly perception of fear and horripilation in humans and animals. This created a frightening aura of silence, magnificence, dangerous dark powers, trepidation and fearful expectation in their presence, and during the religious rites. Animal and human sacrifices were considered a good way of developing faith, forgiveness, and affection towards the guardian deva(s) in this sort of situation. Supreme Buddha has taught that sacrificing beings is not the way to real happiness. Some of these rituals involving sacrifices at that time were extremely barbaric and often an expression of mankind’s deranged madness in the presence and proximity of devas, much to the amusement of devas themselves. I shall present some examples of these controversial rites and sacrifices. In one instance, a group of devas would host a meeting and present their thesis, and analysis of the world and society, to a group of literate well to do humans and nonhumans. Sitting in silence, a deva would suddenly speak, and present his omens and beliefs about the world, and if they sensed there was disagreement, they would challenge the humans to present a counter argument. Humans often would present a spokesperson, typically always a bearded man, in his middle years, who politically was seen as the leader of a conspiracy to the devas. If the spokesperson failed to convince the devas that his argument was useful, or valid, or anything more than obnoxious chattering, as he often did, then a frightening attempt to sacrifice the man would ensue. He would be dragged on stage, and the celestial beings would seize him, lay him on platform and challenge anyone to speak on his behalf to save him. The people, understanding that this represented a symbolic attempt to crush conspiracies would play their part. They would yell for the man to be released, or make exaggerated cries of horror. In those cases the devas, scrutinizing the humans, oft squinting comically at them, would then pardon the man, and release him. But, if no one spoke a word, or just one or two people muttered something, in which case those people would be dragged on stage as well for punitive measures or interrogation, then the devas would eat the man alive on stage. They would at least pretend to by creating an optical illusion. Blood would stain their faces, hands and ornate celestial garments and if they were really mad, they would throw the eaten carcass back into the crowd for their verification. Another example involved devouring a man who had been completely gutted and shredded apart by lions, leopards, and tigers or injured in other ghastly ways. The man was usually so horribly wounded, that he would not have been alive, were it not for the celestial powers of the deva, or devas, who would cruelly accept his living remains, to be taken elsewhere for a meal. This kind of sacrifice involved invoking the jealousy the deva would develop over the active human male body, if it were capable of carrying out superhuman feats. The deva(s) was usually not visible to the eyes of the human sacrifice, who also acted as a priest, but whose presence was indicated by the time the rite was supposed to take place and a lofty area beyond the human sacrifice’s reach that faded into the gloom. The human sacrifice would perform acrobatics over lava, or open pit of fire, or enormous sharp spikes, or big cats or man eating dogs, for many long human minutes, or hours. Sometime, he and other usually male acrobatics teamed against him or each other would compete against each other, and try to topple their adversary into harm’s way. Even the survivor, was forced then to continue to make offerings to appease the deva and then continue with his dangerous acrobatics provoking the devas, subtle lust, enmity and rage, until he was defeated, or, miraculously, forgiven. Carrying the pretense of glorification, the devas would sometimes sample some of the organs or flesh of the devoured remains of the nearly dead acrobatic on the high stage above the chaos, if big cats had gotten the best of him, usually the heart. This kind of barbaric sacrificial rite was often presided by female devatas and almost always conducted privately in dark dimensions, except during public festivals. One of the sacrificial rites that was considered to occur both publicly and privately in celestial homes was the presentment of a feast of many dishes to a leading deva, or oligarchy of devas. There would be grouchy, angry, tired and sad, tigers, and leopards, and cheetahs, with their paws deeply nailed down to enormous gold and silver platter plates, or thick fine china porcelain. Even the tree devas would offer celestial dishes here, and many fine human delicacies were offered, the most scrumptious and civilized dished they had to offer for their times. But live humans were presented too, often crucified onto a plate, surrounded by ornaments, and banners. Men, women and children, usually three or four at a time, were selected, who were picked by lottery or deemed heretics or immediately related to heretics by the general public who sometimes made the unwise decision of trying to secretly make abominable offering to the gods. They would often ask tree devas to disguise human sacrifices past, tree devas who despised these gods, and even presented false food or poisoned dishes themselves. The backlash was horrendous. The last rite I would like to cover, which was, and still is, considered extremely grisly and disgusting, also involved the consumption of humans, specifically, human infants, though sometimes an older individual. In this case, an empty ornamented banquet hall was used, with many splendid furnishings, such as sacred silver lining on the white seats, white curtains and walls, made from silver that was taken forcibly from the Ganges. It was illuminated with bright crystal chandeliers, spreading white lighting overhead and throughout the room. Here, the infant would be callously mutilated over a period of time, even thousands of years in some cases, forcibly kept alive by the celestial powers of the deranged deva. In the case of the particular religion I am referring to, the deva who held the position of sacred sanctity in it had been extremely mad, furious and very upset about something in his, or her past. After this evil deed had been carried out, then the deva would receive the infant into his arms, from henchmen. The deva would examine the bodily and facial characteristics of the infant, and the patterns of blood on his or her body, and try to make their own personal horoscope from what they saw. If the infant was dead, because he or she had somehow managed to die, then the deva would discard it as useless, throwing it away, and maybe going into an enormous violently loud tirade, and usually attack and kill their own henchmen. If the deva was not so mad, and the period of time of mutilation had been brief, such as several minutes, hours, weeks, or months, then the deva might give clemency to the sacrifice and raise them in their family, or to become a henchmen or governing leader of the human populace of the city or cities under that deva’s control. But otherwise, the deva would devour the infant in their arms while the henchmen in their dirty drabs cringed in awe. Sometimes the deva would maintain his face while eating, and develop an expression of loathing, and defeat. At other times, his head would take on that of a lion’s head, tiger’s head, or some other big cat. He would express euphoria by freezing his facial expression, and gesticulations while eating, as if in slow motion, or staring into different directions without showing the motion of his head that had occurred, as a roaring sound emanated through the room and shook space. The people of Puriyaya practiced these kinds of religion involving barbaric sacrifices and rituals and met with downfalls. Many of them went to bad destinations. The Gods themselves, the triumphant devas who had carried out the conquest of Puriyaya and its people and created these religions were by and large not good. They would have much to learn in the future. After the point in time where this story ends, five more such invasions would take place, invasions where Devas would invade human territories, waging war upon them and many of those devas, were of course, a part of the first group described in this story. The second one as well as the final one, were the worst and most horrific, and the same subsequent events occurred in the sense that mankind was degraded, even to the state of an outcast, and at best that of a lowly servant. It was decided at those times after a series of wars with other devas who eventually totally won, that those devas who had engaged in cruel practices would be banished to the asura world.
Chapter 5: The Titans called Asuras It was commonly believed that the ruling highest devas, the Akanittha Devas, had declared that the utmost lowliest of their kind were not actually devas. They had betrayed all devas for their cruelty, and traitors to the divine worlds. For this they were banished from heaven, considered beneath mankind and became known as titans, or asuras. Brahma Maha Brahma of the Brahma world declared that while the time period when asuras first came into being cannot be known, it was well known in sublime divine abodes at that time differently. Whenever or wherever this phenomenon was happening or appeared to be happening, that the first group of bad devas were banished to a state lower than mankind, and that they were the worst of the asuras. They continued their cruel practices in those banished realms with anyone who would listen to them, and even began eating themselves, and each other, for fun, to express their hatred towards devas. Brahma Maha Brahma declared then that these first asuras were no good and should never come back to the deva world. They should be considered as completely separate from devas, with a separate kind of existence, different bodily characteristics and different home. That way, the conflict would resolve itself, better and the asuras would be recognized for who they really were. The asuras would eventually show over a long time some improvement in character, and not be considered, for the most part, so vile. Getting involved in spreading false, and pernicious views about the world is a messy, bloody business and leads to the Avici Hell. It’s good not to do it! So now after all this mess, who was the leader of these devas who had invaded Puriyaya in this story? Who was he really? The story of his origins is not so fun to tell, but nice to say anyways. © 2015 Sawan |
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