Sarama and Her Children: The Dog in Indian Myth

184 Pages·2008·0.78 MB·English

by  Bibek Debroy

BIBEK DEBROY
Sarama and Her Children
The Dog in Indian Myth
PENGUIN BOOKS
Contents
About the Author
Dedication
PREFACE
INTRODUCTION AND TRADITION
LITERATURE AND MODERNITY
SARAMA
SARAMA’S CHILDREN IN THE EPICS
DHARMASHASTRAS AND THE PURANAS
NITI SHASHTRAS
POPULAR TALES
DOGS IN CONTEMPORARY INDIA
IN LIEU OF A CONCLUSION
NOTES
Copyright Page
PENGUIN BOOKS
SARAMA AND HER CHILDREN
Bibek Debroy is an economist and is Research Professor (Centre for Policy
Research), Professor (International Management Institute) and Contributing
Editor (Indian Express group). He has worked in universities, research institutes,
industry and for the government. He has published books, papers and popular
articles in economics. But he has also published in Indology and translated (into
English) the Vedas, the Puranas, the Upanishads and the Gita (Penguin India,
2005). He is now working on an unabridged translation of the Mahabharata in
ten volumes to be published as Penguin Black Classics. The book Sarama and
her Children splices his interest in Hinduism with his love for dogs.
for Pari, who gave a new lease of life
Preface
Sarama has been in the making for a couple of years. In the Hindu tradition,
Sarama is the mother of all dogs. She is the dog of the gods. Thus, dogs are
known as ‘sarameya’s.
I have always liked dogs. In my growing-up years, a succession of dogs
populated the house. Later, when I grew up and had a house of my own, there
were dogs there too. Invariably, these were pure-bred Indian mongrels, usually
picked up from the streets. When the first chapters were written, there were three
pet dogs. Sunday and Peppy have now gone off to dog heaven. Byte is still
around. And then there was Scruffy, who is dead too. She was not quite a pet.
She was a happy stray, fed occasionally and looked after when she had a litter,
before she was eventually taken to a vet and sterilized. At the time when the first
chapters were written, Scruffy’s latest litter of six balls of fur were also in the
house, inside a basket that kept toppling over as they tried to climb out. By the
time the last chapters were written, there were more strays that were half-pets,
and more puppies—two unnamed mothers, twelve pups and three male dogs—
with Bori and Bhuri (now three months old) spending the occasional night on
our bed.
With so many dogs that came and went, you have to be interested in dogs. The
dog versus cat debate is a pointless one. I don’t mind cats, but I must confess I
prefer dogs. The pedigreed versus Indian mongrel debate is also largely
pointless. But I must also confess I prefer mongrels. There is no reason for
others to have similar preferences and there are people who do not like dogs,
pedigreed or otherwise. But are these individual preferences or are there some
community-level preferences determined by social cum religious norms that
have evolved over thousands of years? Islam’s disapproval of dogs is known.
How about Hinduism? Unlike the west, where an Englishman and his dog never
seem to be parted, such as in depictions of Chaucer’s tales, a dog never seems to
have a companion status in India. Indeed, the impression I had, before
undertaking the ‘research’ that went into this book, was stronger. I had the
feeling that dogs were looked down upon in Hinduism. The incident from the
Mahabharata, about the dog accompanying the Pandavas on their final journey,
does not count. That was not a real dog, was it? It was Dharma disguised as a
dog. Sure, there were accounts of holy men adopting dogs, but in general, dogs
were looked down upon. At least, that was the impression I had and I have more
than an average degree of familiarity with Hindu texts.
Imagine my surprise when I re-read the Rg Veda and discovered that dogs
were used as herd dogs, hunting dogs and watchdogs, not to forget their being
used as beasts of burden. I had not known that. When I had read the Rg Veda
earlier, the fact had not registered. That was the trigger. And as I re-read Hindu
texts with this canine perspective in mind, I continually stumbled upon facts that
I had not known. A figurine from Harappa shows a dog wearing a collar.
Another figurine from Mohenjodaro shows a fighting dog. The prehistoric cave
paintings in Bhimbhetka (circa 5000 BCE) show a man with a dog on a leash.
India exported dogs to Alexander the Great and the Persian kings. The Valmiki
Ramayana mentions dogs being bred in palaces and sent as gifts to Ayodhya.
Sita’s earrings were shaped like the teeth of a dog. In the Mahabharata, when
Arjuna prays to Durga, the goddess is described as possessing the face of a dog.
There are several Bhairava temples that not only show Bhairava surrounded by
dogs, but also riding on them. In Delhi itself, there is a Bhairava temple with
statues of dogs that are worshipped. There is a Raja Ravi Verma painting with
the four vedas represented as dogs. The more I read, the more I marvelled. A
more complicated proposition, bolstered with evidence from Bengali literature,
began to emerge as the central thesis of this book. And since there were not any
books on attitudes to dogs in Hinduism, these facts clearly deserved wider
dissemination. The research not only involved extensive reading, it took me to
all kinds of places in search of Bhairava temples and to Bhimbhetka. The book
wrote itself. It was a voyage of discovery and will probably be one to the reader
as well.
In the process, my attitude towards dogs has also changed a bit. Bhairava
temples are often around cremation grounds, or what used to be cremation
grounds earlier. And as you will discover when you read this book, there is an
grounds earlier. And as you will discover when you read this book, there is an
intimate association between dogs and cremation grounds, and between dogs and
the afterlife. Bizarre and strange though it might seem, dogs take us a bit closer
to the afterworld. Spend some time at a cremation ground (not the electric
variety) and life seems transient and temporary, as indeed it is. It is dark. The
embers on some pyre have died down. There are a million stars in the sky. And
you are completely alone. Did I say completely alone? Not quite. There will be
some dog by your side. Not a dog you have adopted, but one that has adopted
you.
On more mundane matters, this is a book I enjoyed writing. And it is one I think
you will like reading.
On less mundane matters, every book results in the accumulation of debts.
First, there are my sons, Nihshanka and Vidroha, whose interest in dogs also
spilled over into the progress of the ‘dog book’. Second, Dr Ranesh
Chakraborty, 80-plus and India’s youngest ever medical doctor, retired cancer
specialist, philatelist and Sushruta-specialist, interested in everything under the
sun—to him I owe a collection of ‘dog stamps’, most of which have not been
used in this book. Third, friends like Latha Jishnu, Shankkar Aiyar, Pranjal
Sharma, Anil Bharadwaj, Seetha Parthasarathy and Laveesh Bhandari, who
parted with tit-bits of information, with the occasional snide comment about
whether the next book was going to be on cats. Fourth, V.K. Karthika and R.
Sivapriya of Penguin—Karthika began what Sivapriya brought to completion,
and without either, the book would not have happened. Fifth, modern-day
Sarama, Suparna Banerjee—without her interest and support bordering on
inspiration, a book that had been languishing for a couple of years would never
have been finally completed. Her enthusiasm in tracking down the Bhimbhetka
cave paintings or the Heliodorus column in Vidisha or Bhairava temples or
cremation grounds has been greater than mine, and also her interest in dogs.
When we got out for walks in the evenings, it is quite a sight to see her followed
by a motley crowd of at least a dozen stray dogs and puppies on an average, Bori
and Bhuri the present favourites and Laawaris the least liked. Thank you,
everyone.
Bibek Debroy
New Delhi
March 2008
March 2008