Episode 1 – Unicorn Fish - Stories From India

Stories From India

I’m the host Narada Muni, and I’m a mythological character myself!

I have the gift of eternal life, and knowledge of the past, the present, and the future. I’m also the son of Brahma, the creator of the Universe. By profession, I’m a traveling musician and storyteller, so the way I’m doing my job is by podcast.

In every episode, I’ll bring you Stories from India from well known Indian Mythological epics like the Ramayan and Mahabharata, to folklore including the Panchatantra, Jataka Tales, Vikram and Betaal, Akbar and Birbal, Tenali Raman, and many other regional folk tales!

This is the first episode of the Stories from India podcast, where we talk about myths, legends and folk tales from India.

I am your host – Narada Muni. I’m a traveling musician and a storyteller with the gift of all knowledge of the past, present and future. So what better way to tell my stories than by podcast?

Transcript and show notes

Music: https://www.purple-planet.com

Twitter: @sfipodcast

Welcome to the first episode of Stories from India – a podcast where we talk about myths, legends and folk tales from India.
Now, as you probably know, India is a very diverse country – there are dozens of distinct cultures – each with their own brand of mythology and in their own language.

So let’s dive in.

What happens to a king in retirement?

Manu had been a good king. He had ruled well and presumably been merciful on more than one occasion, because he was called Manu the Merciful
Now his son was grown up, he handed over the reins of the kingdom and went to the top of the Malaya mountain.
The name should not be confused with the Himalayan mountain range in northern India. The Malaya mountain was in the south and a much smaller range.
Manu went to the top of that mountain to pray to the Gods and to do yoga, which was as much a mental and spiritual exercise as a physical one.
After a million years of praying(seriously, I’m not joking that’s what the text says) – Brahma the creator appeared before him.
Brahma was one of the Holy Trinity(the others being Visnu the preserver and Siva the destroyer).
Brahma was pleased with Manu’s devotion and asked him what he wanted.
Manu had only one tiny wish – its almost nothing – may I please just have the power to save all of the universe when the apocalyptic floods arrive.
Brahma paused a long time and finally said: its weird you said when and not if and secondly you knew the apocalypse is a flood and not I don’t know nuclear war or something. And third, of course you can have the power to save all of the universe when the apocalypse arrives!

As we go through more episodes, you’ll see more of this. Brahma is a god who’s particularly easy-to-please. He went about scattering wishes to all who prayed to him.
Giving someone the power to save the universe? That’s just a regular day in the office for him.

Happy with himself, Manu went back to a little hermitage. One day, he scooped up some water from a pond nearby before offering it in prayer to his dearly departed relatives – because that was a thing you did everytime you bathed, apparently. Normally dearly departed relatives is supposed to mean ancestors, but seeing as Manu lived more than a million years, it probably means several thousand generations of his descendants as well.
Anyway, as he scooped up the water he saw something in it. It was a tiny fish. The fish was restless and had beautiful eyes – because the eyes are the first thing you’d notice on a fish, right?
Manu the merciful, out of compassion put it in a jar. Although, it’s not clear why he didn’t simply let the fish go. Maybe the pond was known to have bigger fish that would be mean to the little fish. Anyway, Manu took it home with him. Within a day and a night, the fish had grown to be 16 fingers in length, and was quite quite uncomfortable in the jar, and asked Manu to help.this is the first mention of this being a talking fish, but somehow many was not surprised.
Manu transferred the fish to a bucket. But again, within a day it had grown to be 3 hands in length, and again asked Manu to help.
Manu, who by now should have seriously considered taking his fish to a vet, instead simply transferred the fish to a well. Another day and night and the fish had grown again.
Manu moved it to a pond, but the fish grew to be 8 miles in length and the pond proved insufficient again and the fish asked for Manu’s help yet again.
This happened with the river Ganga, or the Ganges too until Manu finally put the fish in the Ocean.
Seriously, people, don’t try this at home. If you put a freshwater fish in Saltwater, it will probably die.
It isn’t clear how Manu transferred the fish from the well to the pond, or from the pond to the river or from the river to the Ocean. Moving a beached whale a few dozen feet is hard enough for us today, but Manu seems to have transported an 8 mile long fish so effortlessly that it wasnt even worth mentioning.

But Manu’s fish was no ordinary fish, in case it wasn’t clear to everyone by now.
It survived and thrived in the Ocean and grew in size right in front of Manu’s eyes growing to 1600 miles in length, almost filling up the entire ocean.
Manu finally seems to have caught on to the fact that his fish was no ordinay one. He was awe-struck and said – you must be Vishnu who else has the power to turn into such a big creature?

The fish said: Bingo! first try. I am Vishnu, but this is the first of my avatars – you can call me Matsya
You were right about the apocalypse, or as we gods like to call it, the reset button.
In a few days, there will be a great flood. We gods have made this rescue boat and, tossing the keys to Manu, he said and you are going to be the captain.
In the boat, the gods have placed the 4 Vedas which are the religious texts that underpin most of the Hindu religion.
You must help the distressed and if the winds are too strong, tie the boat to my horn(this is the first mention of a horn on Matsya, and it’s called the horn, not a horn, making matsya a unicorn fish).
Manu, who seemed remarkably prescient when asking talking to Brahma was now bursting with questions. Apocalyptic floods? When? How can I save everything? When will I see you again? pretty much in the same breath

Matsya said, from now there will be no rain for a hundred years; there will be famine all over the world.
All the bad people will be scorched to death by the rays of the sun which will suddenly turn 7 times more powerful.
There will be fire shooting out of mouths in the ground(a very reasonable way to describe lava from a volcano).
From amongst all these fires, there will be 7 clouds born and it’ll rain until all the seas are united – the whole earth will be one giant sea.
When that happens, take this boat and this rope and fasten it to my horn. Everything will be destroyed but for you, me, the Vedas, the Puranas(other texts), the sun, the moon, Markandeya who was a wise man, the river Narmada will be the only things preserved.
Manu said: I don’t understand, when the whole earth is a mass of water, I don’t know what it means for the river Narmada to be preserved.
Matsya or Vishnu just said, why dont we leave it ambiguous? So in the future podcast listeners can try to figure that one out. I dont know what a podcast listener is, said Manu but I’m ok with that.

Manu was already a million years or older, what was another century to him?
He continued practicing yoga, and that probably helped him through the famine, the scorching sun, and the volcanic eruptions and the acid rain that followed.
When the seas started rising, Matsya appeared before him along with the king of serpents, Sesh Naag, a name that means Ultimate Snake.
The king collected all the remaining living beings and put them on the boat and fastened it to Matsya’s horn using Sesh Nag as a rope

This was followed by a really really long Q&A session between Manu and Matsya, many of the answers deserve an episode by themselves.
Some of the stories are about the creation of the universe, why Brahma has 4 heads and so on.
We’ll cover some of these in later episodes.

To cut back to the story
Matsya safely steered the boat to the top of a mountain, which if you think about it does not contradict his earlier remark about the seas being united, but it does contradict him saying that the entire earth will be just one big ocean. I guess he just didn’t expect me to split hair over this.
So anyway, Manu landed at the top of the Himalayas. The floods then slowly receded. Manu offered several prayers and then from the water there emerged a woman. Not quite like some women from the James Bond movies, but the two did end up repopulating the entire Earth.

A few notes

That’s it for now. A few notes from the story
This is the first of Vishnu’s avatars or forms. Vishnu has 10 avatars available to him, of which he has used up 9 so far. We’ll eventually cover all of these
There are some parallels with the story of Noah’s ark. But this isnt surprising, because many cultures across Asia, Europe and America have a great flood myth.
The mountain that Manu landed his boat on was called Naubandhana which literally something tied to a boat.
The text that this story is derived from is a huge book of about 14000 verses called the matsya purana and we’ve just barely scratched the surface here.
And yes, the Matsya Purana is one of the texts that Manu saves during the flood. How’s that for a paradox?

The creature feature is Garuda
Garuda is a God who’s also a bird of prey. He’s either shown as a man with wings and a bird’s beak or as just a giant bird.
he’s Visnu’s vehicle, except when Vishnu is busy being unicorn fish. Garuda is incredibly powerful and simply flapping his wings hard enough can stop the Earth spinning(or stop the skies spinning as the ancients thought of it)
Garuda loves to eat snakes, I mean who wouldn’t if they were a giant bird?
There are many symbols of Garuda not just in India, but in many south Asian countries including Indonesia and Cambodia.
Garuda appears in one of the Night at the Museum movies, and also in the first Tomb Raider movie with Angelina Jolie.
I’m going to do an episode on Garuda later in the podcast

Next week

we’ll be talking about Tenali Raman, a court jester who humiliates his king at every opportunity, is also very cruel to animals and somehow makes a lot of money doing this.
The character next week is a bear who could have easily leapt across an ocean if his doctor hadn’t forbidden it

See you next week!

What happens to a king in retirement?

A few notes

Next week

Further reading