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My tryst with Puranas


For most of us, our elders introduce our native culture through the narration of the stories in the Puranas and Itihasas. My Grandfather, used to tell us a lot of stories about Krishna, he will tell how Krishna is fond of “Seedai” “Appam” etc... I've forgotten many details about those stories.


When I grew up , I couldn't assimilate certain details in the stories, One such story is about “Shiva Ratri Mahima” .


In that story there was a Hunter in a forest, who on a particular evening of “Maha Shivaratri “ was chased by a beast. He in panick climbed the Vilva tree, and found a place in one of the branch. The beast, was waiting for him down below.


Left with no option he was resting there, The Lord in the form of Linga was there down the tree, during the first watch of the night, by his climbing of the tree , some vilva leaves , and the water due to some previous spell of rain fell on the Lord's Head. During the second watch some more leaves and water felled when he tried to adjust himself in the branch. Like wise all the four watches of nights passed with the hunter accidently conscreated the Lord with water and the leaves .
The Hunter didn't eat , drink as he didn't have anything and also didn't sleep fearing the beast for the whole night.


Thus the hunter unwittingly accumalated the merit of observing the fast of “Maha Shivarathri”.
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After some years , I read this book “The Vedas” where MahaPeriava talks about how he came to terms with details described in Purana, at first he also thought it could be “poppy cock” stories, but in later days he explains how he could assimilate the narrations as said in Purana with many reasonings.....


Then, one day I thought about the above story “Maha Shivaratri Mahima”, Vilva tree is a very thorny tree, the branches are also not very sturdy, How can a man climb in that type of tree?


I asked this to my spiritual friend , he told me he was running for life , at that pace he just climbed it, and also advised me to take the essence which is the glory of observing fast on that particular night and leave the rest as “Anna Pakshi” .


I didn't say anything, just kept quiet but was thinking about it now and then, then one day it flashed to me, The story didn't happen at Kali yuga, in fact in which period of time it happened is unknown, it could be in a period where the Vilva tree don't have any thorns and the branches are sturdy enough to accomadate a man. The thorns in the present trees could be due to some genetic mutations or even, if the tree have thorns at that time not so much and may be not so spiky.


Now I could assimilate the story told in the Purana as 100% truth.


My Father In law used to tell the conflicts of stories may be due to the difference in Manvantras, The same story could have some twists in different Manvantras , this is also an important point to keep in mind when we read Puranas. One Manvantra itself is a huge period of time.


Seers in their seat of concentration, they saw what happened and narrated to us but what period of time they saw who can tell for sure?


"Shruti, Smriti Purananam Aalayam Karunalayam
Namami Bhagavat Padanjcha Shankram Loka Shankaram”


Regards,