India is the capital of the earth, says these world Gurus. Why not? A conference of the ‘Muslim scientists” declared long ago that Mecca is the centre of the universe and that the Kaaba radiates an energy that permeates the entire universe. Physicists have since (or had earlier) discovered that yes, such an energy does exist, and it permeates uniformly all across the universe, it oscillates in microwave frequencies and has a temperature of some 2.72 Kalvin.
As for me, I would rather believe in those perceivable ( a couple of them only discernible) gods of the Vedas, particularly the Rigveda. Indra is the main God, for he has the longest and the most powerful sword – the lightning streak with all its frightening tendrils. When my most ancient relations (if only by rape if not by marriage) entered the holy land, they prayed to Indra: :Destroy those who want to destroy us; destroy those whom we want to destroy..
Indra is best pleased with Soma as I am with Old Monk, a popular Indian rum; he loves meat, particularly the fat that shrouds the organs; he is the best warrior there is as I had always wished to be. Ramayana tells us that he lost his balls after – not before, the lucky sob – seducing a beautiful Ahalya, the wife of a powerful sage of the same name. You can please Indra with fried balls of bay rams, so say a legend. Indra is lauded for his love of Soma and I would like to share my kind of Soma with him which would surely please him. Since I am no pioneer in a land of aborigines, and there are the police and a reserve force to kill them at sight still roaming in our forests, I shall need Indra for no reason other than sometime in the future when our brave prime minister will inaugurate a temple or a lingam in another temple proclaiming war against three-and-a-half million demons called Naxals lurking on our forests and its premises..
If you follow Vedic culture, Vishnu is a minor factotum of Indra except that he measures the earth, underworld, and the sky in three steps – undoubtedly meaning the morning time, the noon and once again the twilight of the evening. Vishnu gets a double or treble promotion during the Puranic times when he becomes the supreme godhead (to use an ISKON phrase). Since I vote for the Vedic culture, Vishnu has no relevance – in Bhagavad Gita, Krishna skims over Vishnu, never giving credit to the latter as the real god of whom he is only a temporary incarnation. Only Arjuna once or twice calls him Madhu Sudan – killer of Madhu and his twin brother Kaitabha, both demons born from the ear wax of Vishnu ( of Brahma according to another legend) for causing havoc among the devas – the subjects of Indra’s kingdom.
The four Vedas – Rig, . Sama, Yajur and the lowly Atharva Vedas had not heard of such gods as Brahma the creator as against Brahman, the universe) , Shiva (Siva) (although some busy-body scholars insist that Rudra (the Howler) mentioned in two verses and made a mention of him in the Rig Veda ; later literature variously described him as Shiva or Vishnu).
The three wives of the Trinity – Lakshmi,
