มือหนึ่งง้างยอดคีรินทร กรหนึ่งนั้นค้นคว้าหา
จับได้แมลงภุมรา ก็เอาขึ้นมาชูไว้
เหวยเหวยไมยราพยักษี นี่หัวใจมึงหรือมิใช่
ว่าแล้วขยี้เป็นจุณไป ตัดเศียรลงให้พร้อมกัน ฯOne hand clinging onto the peak of Mount Kirintorn,
— Indirect translation by Ivy Senna, the original text taken from the Ramakien, as written by King Rama I
One hand holding onto the carpenter bee,
With the bee in his raised hand, he says mockingly:
“Maiyarab, is this not your heart?”
Then he crushed it into dust
And decapitated Maiyarab’s head.
Before I am a scholar, I am a witch. And before I am a witch, I am an astrolater: a venerator of stars. For disclosure’s sake, I have to admit that this article began to take form around the time I had performed a ritual taught to me by Pollux. Soon after having seen what I saw, I became obsessed with uncovering the threads of starlight I observed being woven through the mythopoetic retellings of the Ramayana. There were times in the process of reading and researching when I texted my friends, telling them that “I feel like I am losing my mind”. Such was the fear of being delusional, of seeing patterns where there is none. But, again and again, I received undeniable omens from Pollux encouraging me to keep going. This article is a summary of my discoveries, if one can call it that. I was able to verify the Thai sources due to my familiarity with the language, but anything that was originally in Tamil or Hindi, I had to rely on secondary translations by other (hopefully reputable and trustworthy) academics. Hence, if I got any literary facts wrong, please feel free to correct me.
A scan of a plaque depicting Mahiravana taken from ‘The Thiri Rama: Finding Ramayana in Myanmar‘
by Dawn F. Rooney
Is it possible to be haunted by a landscape?
The world of Alpha Geminorum, to me, is the blue of the sky and the gold of the sun. It is that of a cloudless cerulean sky, of wooden floorboards of a ship with billowing flags, of seagulls flying overhead whilst an endless ocean rumbles below. Castor, in my experience, is a coastal landscape. The sunlight kissing your skin. The sands soft and warm beneath your feet, as cool sea waves gently hug your ankles. Castor is a cocoon of warmth and safety and hope. Sometimes the light can be fiery and blinding, but that is a conversation for another day. His twin brother, on the other hand, is a haunting green-grey-blue color. Glas, a term I’ve come to later learn from a beloved friend and colleague. In my experience, the world of Beta Geminorum is twenty thousand leagues under the sea, home to remnants of sunken civilizations— most are haunted, but as I have come to learn, not all are abandoned. Some still thrive, inhabited by beings that may seem humanoid at a quick glance but, upon closer inspection, are so strange they could scarcely be called human.
Was it Atlantis? Was it Ys?
Years before I learned magic was real, long before I knew what witchcraft was, images of this underwater world haunted me as a child.
Pollux’s world.
Then there was the Ramayana.
It sounded so simple, the first time I heard it: the Ramayana, one of the two important epics of Hinduism. In Thailand, we have our own version called the Ramakien. The classic tale of good triumphing over evil, of heroes defeating the villains, of demons getting what they deserve whilst avatars of gods end up happily married to their lovers. The story, to put it very crudely, went this way: there was a handsome and noble prince by the name of Rama. From the very first time one saw him, it was unmistakable that he was touched by something divine. You see, Rama was the earthly avatar of Vishnu who was the Lord of Preservation and the Bestower of Karma. Rama, Prince of Ayodhya, was the embodiment of all that was good and right. Fate made it so that Rama fell in love with Princess Sita, she who was the mortal incarnation of Lakshmi— Vishnu’s heavenly consort. Who else could he have fallen for, if not her? The conflict began when Sita too caught the attention of an evil, lustful demon king by the name of Ravana.
Ravana was a cruel and awe-inspiring demon king of ten heads and twenty arms, each holding a formidable weapon— swords, lances, axes, javelins, and other tools of murder. He ruled over Lanka, a city of fearsome power and ostentatious wealth. Such was his greed and salacity that he desired after Sita and decided to kidnap her, sparking what became a long and bloody war between the Kingdom of Lanka and the Kingdom of Ayodhya. Yet, to say that Ravana was the villain of the story whilst Rama was the sole hero would not be entirely accurate. There was another: a monkey-god by the name of Hanuman, who served as a soldier in Rama’s army. Hanuman was brave. Hanuman was sly. Hanuman was knowledgeable in the arcane arts. He was the son of the Vayu, the God of the Winds, and possessed a wit and deviousness that Rama did not. It was no surprise to anyone to hear that the tale ends with Ravana defeated at Rama’s hands, with the aid of Hanuman. The villain defeated. The heroes victorious. A happy, ever after.
Yet, I wasn’t satisfied.
It would take me a few years to figure out why.
I was very, very young when I was first exposed to the Ramakien. There was a channel on TV that played what felt like an endless loop of a voiceover of a man narrating the story of the Ramakien. The story was accompanied by the intricate paintings of the Ramakien murals, taken from the walls of Wat Phra Kaew, the temple of the Emerald Buddha. My caretakers would leave me glued to the television, hungrily drinking in the artwork and the stories that my youthful mind, at the time, could not fully comprehend. As a child, I also recalled watching a lakorn by the title of อภินิหารหุ่นกายสิทธิ์: a soap opera about a Thai puppet tradition which uses puppets to theatrically tell the stories of characters from the Ramakien. Only, in this fantastical soap opera, the characters from the Ramakien are akin to gods who could possess the puppeteer and grant them magical powers. I would have to confess that as an adult, I actually went ahead and bought a DVD recording of the show to rewatch it in my own time— like a guilty pleasure, like an enthrallment.
As I grew older, I was forced to study parts of the Ramakien in Thai classes. I remembered being made in middle school to read the chapter สุครีพหักฉัตร in the traditional way — ทำนองเสนาะ as it was called, a melodious poetic, half-singing half-spoken thing — something I had taken for granted then. Likewise, every year, whenever it was available, my parents would take me to see the Royal Khon performances at the Thai Cultural Centre. Sometimes my family received invitations to attend. Sometimes we paid out of pocket to watch the shows for the sake of pure entertainment. After every performance, I would be left hungry for more.
Within the mythology of the Ramakien, there was one character who continually enraptured my attention. His name was Maiyarab.
His story went like this:
Ravana (who is called Thotsakan in the Ramakien, but for consistency’s sake he will be called Ravana as per the Ramayana) had a nephew. Maiyarab was the nephew and, just as his uncle Ravana was the ruler of Lanka upon the earth, Maiyarab ruled a kingdom underneath the ocean in a hard-to-reach realm known as Patala. Ravana, to put it simply, tasked Maiyarab with kidnapping Prince Rama so that Rama could be killed. After all, Maiyarab was the greatest and most cunning sorcerer among the Yaksha — the so-called species of demon that both he and Ravana and their subjects belonged to — able to brew potions and ointments to turn himself invisible. At the time, Hanuman had enchanted himself to become titanous in size, enabling him to keep Rama safe, cradled within his mouth. With the magic of invisibility, along with the magic to put armies to slumber, Maiyarab was able to sneak into Rama’s war camp with ease. With guile and arcane illusions and the trick of impersonation, Maiyarab was able to steal Prince Rama right from the mouth of Hanuman.
Of course, the villains never win, do they?
Hanuman found his way to Patala, traveling down the stem of a lotus flower, down between a tiny crack in the earth, meeting a half-fish half-monkey son he had not realized he had fathered along the way. The monkey-god confronted Maiyarab in his throne room, insulting and demeaning him, provoking them to fight. When the duel dragged on and on, Maiyarab challenged Hanuman to a game that would end it all: each would take turns hitting the other with clubs made from the thick and twisted trunks of towering palm trees. Only, Maiyarab had a secret. Like Ravana, Maiyarab was immortal. Long ago, he had learned the means to take out his heart and transform it into a carpenter bee, allowing the bee to fly to the very top of a mountain and hide among the greenery. Unless the bee was to be killed, he would be unable to die. What he did not know was that he had been betrayed and Hanuman too knew his secret. With his foot on Maiyarab’s chest, pinning him to the earth, Hanuman transformed into a giant so that his other hand could reach the very top of the mountain where Maiyarab’s heart was— Hanuman crushed the heart before Maiyarab’s eyes, killing him there and then. Hanuman also decapitated him and took his severed head as a trophy.
A mural depicting a scene from the Ramakien (left), photograph of a scene from the Royal Khon performance of the Ramakien (right)
But that was not the only version of the story.
Ravana and Maiyarab and their kind were not ‘demons’, not even Yaksha. Sometimes they were Rakshasa. Sometimes they were Asura. Each of these terms have their own implications, one too complicated for me to get into for the scope of this piece of writing. In other tales, Maiyarab is not either Ravana’s nephew. Rather, he is Ravana’s son. In some other stories, however, he is Ravana’s brother. He is Ravana’s chthonic double ruling a kingdom beneath the waters whilst Ravana ruled from upon the surface. Here, his name is not Maiyarab but Ahiravan— literally translated to be snake Ravana (‘ahi’ meaning serpent). Sometimes, he is called Mahiravana instead, the name meaning earth Ravana (‘mahi’ meaning earth, a title with chthonic insinuations). The story of Mahiravana was originally a Tamil folktale, one which traveled and spread everywhere from Tamil Nadu to Nepal, becoming so popular that it even made its way into printed editions of the Tulsidas. Mahiravana was likewise present in the Daksini Ramayana and the Krittivasi Ramayana, and other versions of the text. The Ananda Ramayana took this interpretation further, claiming that Ahiravan and Mahiravana are twin brothers, a cursed incarnation of the Ashvins by another face and form.
Do you see now why I gasped upon making this connection?
The Ashvins are arguably the Hindu equivalents of the Greek Dioscuri, of Castor and Pollux. Finding out about this felt like vindication. Yet, something still gnawed at me, as if I was a tide yoked by the moon or a shark bewitched by the scent of blood. There was another story, another name.
Mayil Iravanan.
In Two Tamil Folk Tales by Dr. Kamil V. Zvelebil, the author went on to explain the meaning behind the name. Mayil could be translated to ‘peacock’. Iravanan, similar to the previous cases, connotes Ravana. In other words, Mayil Iravanan could be literally interpreted as ‘Peacock Ravana’. Below is a quote from Zvelebil:
“Why Peacock (mayil) Ravana? The ‘peacock’ attribute of this ‘other’ Ravana possesses a multivalent symbolism for the Tamil mind. Peacock as such has always been very significant feature of Tamil myths and legends. The role of peacock is usually ‘positive’ since he is the announcer of rains, the symbol of fertility, the bird of proud beauty etc, but he is also a bellicose bird, and, as a theriomorphic form of Skanda he is not always concerned with ‘benevolence’ since Skanda is also the chief of demons of diseases which befall children, and the patron of thieves. The main property of the peacock — its splendourous colourfulness — reflects the proud splendour of Peacock Ravana. In ancient Tamil religion the peacock had undoubtedly sacral character (thus its feathers were used to decorate the kantu, the pillar used in worship, and the lance, the main weapon of the ancient warriors). The peacock may even have been a game bird in the early hunting-gathering societies in South India (and this would establish a deep primitive religious connection, related to the notion of the ‘mystical’ relationship between the hunter and his game, killed and eaten afterwards). In the Mahabharata, the peacock is very much associated with war: he is linked to Garuda, and has the character of the warrior bird.
[…] There is yet further association which explains the peacock attribute of Mayiliravanan: in the medieval period, the blue-green peacock is used often as a symbol for the ocean, both in poetry and in mythology. Cur, the archenemy of Murugan, and an asura, is transformed into a peacock (and a rooster) in the ocean, and as such is tamed and subdued by the god who makes it his vehicle. The peacock suggests in this context the primordial chaos and untamed nature (implicit in the ocean). And Mayiliravanan is the lord of Patala Lanka, a chthonic kingdom situated in the depth of the ocean. All these associations — the grandeur and colourfulness, the bellicose nature, the connection with the depths of the sea — must have been instrumental in the choice of the attribute Peacock Ravana for the chief antihero of the folk narrative under scrutiny.“
Here we have Mayil Iravanan, a figure (however vaguely) associated with the Ashvins (the ‘Vedic Dioscuri’), who is a sorcerer-king ruling over a kingdom beneath the ocean. Here is a figure associated with war and pride, with abductions and the deep sea, known for his cunning, his illusions and impersonations, his ability to become invisible and charm men to sleep, someone who can remove his heart and achieve immortality from it. Due to his role as an antagonist to the gods, he could arguably be deemed to be a ‘devil’. Sasha Ravitch has implied in her Invocation of Pollux (which could be partially publicly viewed on her Twitter here, the full version available on her Patreon) that Pollux — in her experience — is a Sea-Devil, a “Master of Devils initiated by the Venom of the Sea”. I have had similar experiences in my interactions with Pollux. My research, guided by Pollux via constant visionary and tangible omens, has led me to the conclusion that Mayil Iravanan (also known by the names of Ahiravan/Mahiravana/Maiyarab) is a Pollux-figure of sorts. Whether he is a spirit who resides among Pollux’s court or even Pollux by another name and face, that is something I have yet to confirm, although I have my own private theories.
But more on the underwater kingdom itself: Patala Lanka, as it was called in the Mayil Iravanan Katai. It was no gloomy hell. Rather, it was beautiful, a netherworld kingdom majestic enough to rival the greatest cities of earth and the heavens. It was a realm of pearl fortresses and hills of silver, of pleasure groves made of coral and the homes of nagas. Throughout the narrative, one gets the sense that Patala Lanka represents a mirror image of terrestrial Lanka. Hence, the motif of mirroring and twinning becomes observable— not just for the antagonists but for the heroes too. After all, Hanuman himself also ends up meeting a double of himself in Patala Lanka in the form of his own son, something thought to be a bizarre miracle, his sexual potency miraculously evident despite his strict celibacy. This mirroring becomes even more prevalent when, in a variant of the tale about Mahiravana, we learn that just as Ravana of the terrestrial Lanka was a devout worshiper of Shiva, the God of Destruction, Mahiravana too was a devotee of Kali, the Goddess of Destruction.
There are stories where Mahiravana is immortal and Hanuman had to destroy his heart first before anything else can be accomplished. Sometimes, this is via the act of crushing five beetles that housed parts of his heart, and other times Hanuman had to manifest five faces pointing in five different directions just so he can blow out five candles simultaneously. Yet, the version of the tale that kept me coming back again and again was the one where the fearsome Mahiravana was not merely a sorcerer, but also a priest-like devotee of the awe-inspiring Kali. In this tale, Hanuman discovered that Mahiravana was planning to not just kill Prince Rama as per Ravana’s order. Rather, Rama was to become a sacrifice for Kali. Hanuman managed to reach Rama just in time and proposed a plan: they would trick Mahiravana into becoming the sacrifice himself. The intention to have Hanuman be the one who came up with the plan appeared to be a deliberate choice by the author of the tale. Prince Rama, ever straightforward in his ‘goodness’, could never have proposed something so cunning. Only Hanuman, the monkey-god who could match Mahiravana move for move, could have conjured such a guileful scheme. One may also wonder if this was Hanuman’s payback for being tricked by Mahiravana who had abducted Rama from literally under Hanuman’s nose. Either way, there was only one way the story would end.
At the time of the sacrificial ceremony, Mahiravana dragged Rama out of his cage and into the ritual area to stand before the image of Kali. He urged Rama to look at Kali’s terrifying statue and bow before her altar. Rama, following Hanuman’s plan, shook his head and refused. He explained to Mahiravana that since he was a prince, he had never had to bow before anyone ever before and thus did not know how to bow. Rama continued politely, asking Mahiravana to demonstrate how one was meant to bow before the fearsome Kali. Rama claimed that he would follow suit once he saw how it was meant to be done. Mahiravana — perhaps blinded by rage at Rama’s audacity, perhaps out of fervent devotion towards his goddess — did exactly that. Mahiravana bowed, and — as he lowered head, his neck bent and bare before the holy statue — Hanuman, who was hidden in the shadows, revealed himself. The monkey-god took a sword from the hand of the statue of Kali and swung it over the prostrating Mahiravana, decapitating him before his goddess.
Immediately upon reading this, I thought of Perseus decapitating Medusa. I thought of Orion’s lost head, of Rahu as the severed head and Ketu as the headless body. It took me a few days, mulling over this decapitation scene and replaying it over and over again, for the symbolism to click.
In the Rigveda, the head — often referred to in metaphorical expressions such as the ‘head of the universe’, the ‘head of the bull’ or the ‘head of the cow’ — is suggested to indicate the invisible and mysterious place where a treasure or secret is hidden, where the essence of the universe is hidden. In various myths such as those of Makha, Namuci, Visvariipa and Dadhyanc, the one thing that all these myths have in common is that the heads of the characters within the myth often contain some priceless treasure, one that is sought after by other gods and beings. Decapitation and the beheadings therefore implies a sacrifice of such treasures, an offering of such secrets to something greater. Sacrifice acts as a bridge between what is mortal and what is divine. In other words, it ensures the contract between deity and humanity, implying a human-divine contract. However, all of this is true mainly in the context of self-sacrifice. In the context of this particular version of the Ramayana though, Ahiravan — who is tricked to become the object of sacrifice rather than being the sacrificer beheading another victim — unwillingly performs the role of the contract itself. He becomes not the hand which holds the pen but rather the paper upon which the ink is signed.
But does a beheading equal ‘the end’? Is death the ultimate ending?
A mural depicting a scene from the Ramakien (left), photograph of a scene from the Royal Khon performance of the Ramakien (right)
I am drawn back to the tale of the Sage Dadhyanc and the Ashvins. Dadhyanc, a renowned great sage, is described in the Rigveda to have a head of a horse— the form of a reverse centaur if you will, similar to many depictions of the Ashvins. In this tale taken from the Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa, Indra — the king of the gods — taught the wisdom of madhuvidyā to Dadhyanc and warned him that if he revealed that secret wisdom to anybody then he would be beheaded. The Ashvins, however, wished to learn the secret wisdom. They are fully aware of Indra’s warnings and thus sought to overcome this obstacle by cutting off Dadhyanc’s original (human) head and fixing a head of horse on Dadhyanc’s trunk. Dadhyanc then taught the secret wisdom to the Ashvins, and when Indra beheaded him, it was the horse’s head that was decapitated instead. The Ashvins then reattached Dadhyanc’s original head onto his body, restoring him to normal. This tale seems to be suggestive of how, allegedly, in ancient Vedic practices, both men and horses were subjected to sacrifices and that in some cases, the heads of horses and men were exchanged. More mundanely, it may also allude to rituals where men put on masks of the heads of animals for religious or ceremonial purposes.
Symbolically though, the tale implies that the Ashvins possessed the knowledge of how a mutilated or decapitated victim can be made whole again. Ergo, the Ashvins are implied to possess the knowledge of restoration and healing, one which borders very much on necromancy. This should not come as a surprise to me considering that the Ashvins are divine healers — divine physicians — but even I was taken aback by the sheer ‘mad scientist’ Frankenstein-esque temperament of it all. To quote something the astrologer JM Hamade once stated a while back: “the Horse Twins were known in their doctoring to cut things up and rearrange them as they saw fit”. I am now finally seeing that aspect of the twins for what it is.
Back to the Ramayana, though.
As a student of literature and history and politics, I am fully aware of how stories often reflect the political and cultural biases of their authors. National epics are often used to reinforce the status quo of those in power, used to subtly or not to subtly promote certain messages and viewpoints. The Ramakien of Thailand, for example, is an adaptation of the Indian Ramayana, written by King Rama I and later worked upon by King Rama II, and so on and forth. I do not think that it is too much of a stretch to assume that monarchs who took on the name of Rama would have an agenda behind adapting the Ramayana. As we know, Ramakien is far from the only adaptation. There are over three hundred versions of the Ramayana out there. On top of that, as a witch, I am conscious of the fact that storytelling is magic in and of itself. From personal experience, I am conscious of the fact that stories can be enspirited and how spirits do come through wearing the skins of characters.
It is with that perspective that I found myself wondering if the renowned Indian author by the name of Anand Neelakantan was similarly touched by the spirits when he wrote his debut novel. Neelakantan, author of Asura: Tale of the Vanquished, had written a novel that I completely devoured in less than a day, one that — despite many of its flaws — left me wanting for more. Asura is a retelling of the Ramayana from Ravana’s perspective and boy, does it not shy away from depicting graphic and horrendous scenes! There are parts of the story that left me disgusted at Ravana, how cruel and vile and twisted he was, and parts of the tale where I felt myself tearing up for the character, in sympathy and pity and heartache. Neelakantan had said in past interviews that stories such as the Ramayana are not static, that myths evolve with time and get rewritten and reinterpreted again and again, that every person has his own Ramayana within him. Asura is his version: it is not a research paper, but a product of his imagination, influenced by the many stories he had heard in his childhood and the folk tales he stumbled across during his travels.
And the reason why Neelakantan was so compelled to write his novel?
“Asura Emperor would not leave me alone. For six years he haunted my dreams, walked with me, and urged me to write his version of the story. He was not the only one who wanted his version of the story to be told. One by one, irrelevant and minor characters of the Ramayana kept coming up with their own versions.”
I felt shivers running down my spine reading those words in the foreword of the novel.
Was Neelakantan being hyperbolic or was he genuinely haunted by something?
More than that, I couldn’t help but ask: am I similarly haunted too?
In Vedic practices, storytelling has always been a form of magic and remediation. The Shani Mahatmya, for example, is a tale of the god and planet Saturn which could be ritualistically recited as a form of astrological propitiation and remediation— the book The Greatness of Saturn by Robert E. Svoboda explains this in much more depth. I have a suspicion too that the Mayil Iravanan Katai, the early modern Tamil prose rendering of the tale of Mayil Iravanan, can serve a similar purpose. This is because that at the very end of the text, the text claims that “whoever will read this story and finish reading it with devotion, whoever will listen to it, and having read it, retell it to others, will never fall under the evil spell of the nine planets; god of misfortune will not approach him.” This should not be too much of a shock in light of how the Ramayana is, after all, a holy text. If Bibles can be used in folk magic — if Homer’s poetry has been historically used for magical purposes within the Greek Magical Papyri — then of course the Ramayana and its myriad of versions must hold a similar spark of magic within it.
The Ramayana, I believe, is a living story.
To borrow the words of Robert E. Svoboda:
“A living story is born when living wisdom incarnates in the subtle manner of a human consciousness. Every writer of fiction knows how at some point during the writing of a story when the characters come to life and begin to direct succeeding plot twists. When the characters of a mundane book written by a single author can take on lives of their own, how much more dynamic must mythic gods, seers and heroes be, who have been the focus of concentration for millions of people over thousands of years? […] If living wisdom is good metaphysical good, which nourishes and heals its hearers, dead knowledge is mere dead weight, which can accumulate within you until it must either be expelled or kill you. […] Living wisdom lives because it contains a kernel of Truth, a fragment of the Real Reality, which can be transmitted to whoever is open and alert enough to receive it. Real music, real verse, and real stories have an innate power to teach, to heal, and to induce mystical experiences. Like ‘real poetry’ which Robert Graves said causes its listeners’ hair to stand on end, live-wire myth shocks you when you grab hold of it.”
What then is the ‘kernel of Truth’ within the tale of Mahiravana?
In one ending, his heart is crushed and he is beaten to death with a makeshift club of twisted palm trees and decapitated.
In a different ending, a simpler ending, he is tricked and beheaded before the statue of his goddess.
In yet another ending — the one of the Tamil Mayil Iravanan Katai — Hanuman kills him, but not before Mayil Iravanan repents, asking Hanuman for his forgiveness.
In all endings, no matter what, Mahiravana dies.
But I know now that death is not the end.
When I tell myself my favorite version of the tale again, I see Mahiravana’s eyes widening as realization hits him, right before the blade falls upon his neck. He dies not in regret, but in laughter— a wry, bittersweet laughter. He laughs at the irony of the trickster being tricked. Well-played, indeed. Hanuman is a cunning foe. The son of the God of the Winds is a worthy foe. Perhaps his thoughts drift to his kingdom, wondering what will become of the beauteous realm after he has passed. He is saddened, perhaps, that death has come so soon. But he is not afraid. No, he is calm and still. In the split second before the sword meets the flesh, Mahiravana accepts his defeat and offers his head to Kali. He prays, in his mind, that his brother in terrestrial Lanka be shown the same mercy of a quick and painless death when the time comes. He greets death like a friend. It is this very same mystery the Ashvins know well: that even decapitated heads can be reattached to their beheaded bodies. Nothing is beyond restoration. Everything can be made whole once again.
Mahiravana, the sorcerer-king of the netherworld kingdom, knows well that death is not the end.
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Upon the Altar 