Mr Ashish Kumar
(It is difficult to comment about young author Mr Ashish Kumar and his mythological/spiritual writing. He has well researched Hindu Philosophy, Science and quest of success beyond the material realms. I am really mesmerized. I am sure you will be also amazed. We are pleased to begin a series on excerpts from his well acclaimed book “Samudramanthanam” . According to Mr Ashish “Samudramanthanam is less explained and explored till date. I have tried to give broad way of this one of the most important chapter of Hindu mythology. I have read many scriptures and take references from many temples and folk stories, to present the all possible aspects of portrait of Samudramanthanam.” Now our distinguished readers will be able to read this series on every Saturday.)
Amazon Link – Samudramanthanam
☆ Weekly Column – Samudramanthanam – 23 – Parijata ☆
Sura and Asura were now fed up from the churning of ocean of milk ‘Kshirasāgara’. They all were bore from this churning now. They all were missing their actual work and fun. Narada muni is aware of it. He knows that now this churning must stop soon. Soon Amrita will appear but only Lord Vishnu knows how long this will go.
Then after thinking something in his mind Narada muni proceeded towards Lord Brahma and said to him,” Prmapita Parmeshvar, father of all, Lord, are you thinking same which I am? I can see that both the teams are desperately want to end this churning of ocean. They are no more interested in it.”
Lord Brahma said,” your observation is right Narada, actually they are bored from routine task. They want some rest and relaxation and enjoyment of their senses. You do one thing. Go near ‘Indira’ and ‘Bali’ and told them that Brahma has given command to do a short break from this churning. You request Indira that he will order Apsaras do come here and do dance with Gandharva who will play music and also request from ‘Bali’ that he will order their team members to arrange food for everyone.
Narada muni does the same. Now all Sura and Asura were enjoying a surprise party in which many types of sense engagements were present. Different types of foods were available there. Gandharva were playing their music instruments and Apsaras were dancing over their instrument tunes.
Bali looks towards an apsara ‘Urmila’ and said, “you all are very beautiful but your body is lacking the decoration of nature”
Indira interpreted and said, “what do you mean Bali?”
Bali said, “Indira you don’t know how to respect and decorate a woman. Your heaven’s beauties are lacking the natural decoration”
After listing these words of ‘Bali’ a tree starts emerging from ocean ‘Kshirasāgara’. It is night-flowering coral jasmine, or simply fragrance. Tree growing to 10 m (33 ft) tall, with flaky grey bark. The leaves were opposite, simple, 6–12 cm (2.4–4.7 inches) long and 2–6.5 cm (0.79–2.56 inches) broad, with an entire margin. The flowers were fragrant, with a five- to eight-lobed white corolla with an orange-red center; they were produced in clusters of two to seven together, with individual flowers opening at dusk and finishing at dawn. The fruit is a bilobed, flat brown heart-shaped to round capsule 2 cm (0.79 inch) diameter, each lobe containing a single seed. The fragrance of flower of Parijata and its appearance as white and orange color make to lose sense to all people present there.
Bali said to Indira, “this is the tree and flower of Patal lok, underworld which bloom here as a result of ‘Kshirasāgara’ churning only on my request and I am going to give this tree with flowers to my sister and your wife ‘Indrani’ on the day of ‘Bhaiya Dooj’.
Everyone were amazed from Bali’s act. Indira is not believing on it what Bali has done. Even he was still thinking that this must be some trick of Asura. Some Asura thinking that ‘Bali’ has done wrong to give precious tree of underworld to Indira’s wife.
Bali has won hearts of many.
Churning started again.
© Ashish Kumar
New Delhi
≈ Blog Editor – Shri Hemant Bawankar/Editor (English) – Captain Pravin Raghuvanshi, NM
