Ramayana – Kakabhushundi – {Ep.185} – Stories From India – Podcast

A story about Kakabhushundi – a crow who goes through a thousand and one punishments – until finally, Shiva gives him the power to pause time and to travel to other Universes!

Introduction

Welcome to “Stories From India”. This is a podcast that will take you on a journey through the rich mythology, folklore and history of the Indian subcontinent. I am Narada Muni, the celestial storyteller and the original “time lord”, like the Doctor from Doctor Who. With my ability to travel through space and time, I can bring you exciting and fascinating stories from the past, the present, and the future. From the epic tales of the Mahabharata and Ramayana to the folktales of the Panchatantra to stories of Akbar-Birbal and Tenali Raman, I have a story for every occasion.

The purpose of the stories is neither to pass judgment nor to indoctrinate. My goal is only to share these stories with people who may not have heard them before and to make them more entertaining for those who have.

Today’s Story

Everyone is a participant in the inevitable passage of time. But have you ever wished that you had a pause button on time itself? What if you had a remote that allowed you to hit pause on time itself. And the ability to step outside the Universe, and to examine other universes. Many science fiction authors as well as Hollywood have explored this theme a lot. But today we’re going to talk about a person who actually has that ability. And that is Kakbhushundi. This story was requested by one of my long term listeners so thank you for the suggestion Sahil.

Kakbhushundi is a sage. You’ll also notice that at times I refer to Kakbhushundi in the present tense. That is because he’s still alive! Well. We’ll cover that more in the show notes.

Let’s begin today’s story. This was before Kakbhushundi got his powers, so it does make sense to ask the question when and where was this story? This happened a few thousand years ago in Ayodhya. Yes, the very same Ayodhya that is the home of Rama from the Ramayana. 

In this place there was a young man. Let’s call him Ghamandi. It’s a hindi word that means arrogant. And you’ll soon see why I picked that name. Ghamandi was on his way to get an education.

The process of getting into a University was a little different in Ancient India than it is today. If you’re used to elaborate entrance exams, essays and GPA consideration, the process was slightly simpler.
Ghamandi was walking along the road and saw a Rishi, or wise man, sitting by the side of the road, saying something to a few people who sat in rapt attention.

Ghamandi walked up and asked “Can I sit here and listen?”

The wise man nodded. And that was it. Ghamandi was enrolled in that University.

The Rishi, whom I shall call Shaant, was talking about Shiva. Quick sidebar if you haven’t heard of Shiva before – he’s the destroyer of the Universe. Together with Vishnu, the Preserver and Brahma the creator the three of them form the holy trinity in Indian mythology. And in case you aren’t tired of hearing me say it, Brahma is my Dad. Another thing to keep in mind is that Ram, the King on whom the Ramayana is based is an avatar of Vishnu. Throughout history there’s been a gentle, polite tug of war between Vishnu supporters and Shiva supporters. I mention it because right now Ghamandi was firmly on the Shiva side of the fence.

So anyway, Shaant was talking about Shiva, which was great. That’s exactly what Ghamandi wanted to learn about. But imagine Ghamandi’s surprise when Shaant switched topics to Vishnu. Ghamandi couldn’t complain that his professor was veering off the syllabus. Because there wasn’t a syllabus.

The word Shaant means calm, that’s because he was calm and patient as Ghamandi began treating him with disrespect. Well not exactly disrespect, but it certainly was a lack of respect. To Ghamandi, Shaant was only a means to an end. In Ancient India, where a teacher was given the same importance as God or parents, that is to say, every one of their smallest wishes would be considered a command.

Some Rishis came to expect that level of commitment from their students and even former students, and sometimes even people who were never their students. Just look at Durvasa for example. But Shaant was a radical departure from the Rishis that would curse you into a worm just because you dared to serve them chai that was slightly less than boiling hot. Shaant never told Ghamandi off, even when Ghamandi treated him with about the same respect as his other learners. Which meant Ghamandi casually interrupted Shaant in the middle of his lesson. “When do we get to the good part? We heard about Vishnu yesterday as well. Can we talk about Shiva?”

Shaant was calm and patient. He needed to be in order to deal with this avant-garde behavior. “There are no good or bad parts, my child. If Shiva stories interest you, by all means listen to those lessons. But if you do that at the cost of learnings from Vishnu, you’re only cheating yourself”

Ghamandi didn’t say anything. But he gave a nasty look to his teacher. Somehow that still wasn’t enough to anger the teacher. But it was enough to anger Shiva himself. Yeah, Shiva the destroyer of the Universe was listening in on this conversation at this exact time. He appeared on the scene looking just as angry as he felt.

Everyone immediately fell to Shiva’s feet, including Ghamandi, and Shaant. Maybe this mollified Shiva to some extent. But even though he appeared less angry, he didn’t change his mind about the punishment he had handpicked for Ghamandi. Ghamandi would have to go through a thousand cycles of life, death and rebirth until he finally became a human again. He’d start from one of the lowest forms – a Snake. At which point, Vasuki, the snake around Shiva’s neck cleared its throat and hissed “I beg your pardon?!”.

“Not you, Vasuki. I only meant ordinary Earth snakes.” Shiva clarified

Ghamandi had an objection too – “Not to sound too pedantic my lord, but why not start with bacteria? They are lower forms of life than Snakes”. Ghamandi’s real motivation for suggesting that was to shortcut the time span before he returned to being human. Because bacteria have a life expectancy of 12 hours..

“You hear but you don’t understand. You see, but you don’t observe”. Shiva replied. “To you, size is everything. A snake is larger than bacteria, so a Snake must be a higher form of life. Not so, Ghamandi. What matters is that Snakes are the most persecuted creatures on Earth. People misunderstand them, and treat them with hostility.”

“Hear, hear” cheered Vasuki.

Ghamandi accepted his fate. And was instantly transformed into a Snake. Quickly his snake instincts kicked in and he slithered away. That was fortunate, because corresponding human instincts were kicking in amongst Shaant’s other students. They looked for sticks and would have hunted down Ghamandi if he hadn’t slithered away. 

Later, Ghamandi tried to rationalize why he hadn’t just stayed in place and let them kill him. That would have meant one less rebirth to worry about. But he figured that Shiva was smart enough to put in a countermeasure for that to make his survival instincts take over.

Meanwhile, Shaant was praying to Shiva. Shiva was pleased and readily said that he would grant a wish. Shaant said that he only wanted his student to have a painless existence. And if possible, let him accumulate knowledge across his 1000 lives. Shiva granted both wishes though they both sort of limited the punishment he himself had carefully crafted.

Ghamandi the Snake was reborn over and over, just as Shiva had wanted him to. A thousand cycles of life, death and rebirth later, he was finally born as Bhushundi. He retained his knowledge and experiences across all those lives. I tried asking him about it recently when I was talking to him in preparation for this podcast episode. But Bhushundi didn’t say. And I didn’t press him on it. If he does talk to me about it and if he’s comfortable with it, I might share stories from that in future episodes.

But for now, let’s talk about Bhushundi. This man is actually similar to Ghamandi. In that he is a fan as well – but not just of Shiva. Bhushundi is a fan of Ram, who was an avatar of Vishnu as I mentioned before. Bhushundi roamed the country in his 1000th rebirth, looking to learn everything he could about Ram. But that is not all he wanted to learn. He was interested in the concept of God.

Someone told him that Rishi Lomash was an expert on this topic, so that’s where Bhushundi went. Bhushundi found the Rishi teaching some students under a tree. The situation seemed very similar to when Ghamandi had approached a similar setup with the Rishi Shaant teaching under a similar tree.

The difference this time was that Bhushundi was deeply respectful. Getting through a thousand rebirth cycles had taught him at least that much.

The other difference was that Lomash lacked Shaant’s patient approach. So when Bhushundi asked a few too many questions about Ram, it bothered Lomash. It got worse when Bushundi disagreed with Lomash about the main point that Lomash was making. Lomash said that God is nirguna – that is God is indifferent. God acts without any good or evil intent – God just acts. But this did not sit well with Bhushundi who had first hand experience of a God who had not acted with indifference. 

Lomash in a fit of anger cursed Bhushundi. Bhushundi was crowing about Ram and about a benevolent God, wasn’t he? So Lomash cursed him to become a crow. He could go on crowing now, but who would listen to him?

Zap, and Bhushundi become a crow. Kakbhushundi since Kak means crow.

But wait there was another flash of light. This time it came from nearby. It was Shiva, again.

Everyone, including the crow, bowed. Shiva was not angry this time. But he had come to right a wrong. This time, Ghamandi/Bhushundi was on the receiving end of it. Seeing as Lomash lacked the ability to undo his curse, Shiva offered to do it. But the crow refused. 

“I’ve got wings! Just imagine I can spread the word of the Ramayana faster this way”

Pleased with this reply, Shiva granted him the power to pause time, to observe the universe, to travel to other universes.

And Kakbhushundi loved that. There are rumors floating around that he has visited 13 alternate universes and seen the Ramayana and Mahabharata played out in each of them. With some differences. This intrigued me, and I tried to ask Kakbhushundi about these as well, but he wouldn’t reveal anything. Guess what happens in one Universe is meant to stay in that Universe.

That’s all for now

Some notes on the show

The word Kaak in this wise man’s name is a word that means Crow, which should not be surprising because that is how he got his name.

There’s a lake called the Kakabhushundi Tal. Tal is not that lake’s surname. It’s just a hindi word that means lake. There are a few theories – that this is the place where Shiva cursed the sage, this is where he was blessed, or maybe this is. If that uncertainty isn’t enough for you, let me double it – because there’s a second lake which is also assumed by others to be the site of one or more of those events. This second Kakbhushundi lake is in Nepal.

Kakbhushundi is eternal. You could say he’s alive today, but I’d challenge that – what does being alive even mean to someone who isn’t participating in the flow of time in our universe? Kakbhushundi’s ability is quite unique. And his ability to travel from one Universe to another is actually a little bit more advanced than my own abilities. I can go anywhere but in our Universe only. But if you’re thinking of switching allegiance, let me warn you that Kakbhushundi does not do a podcast. And secondly, I may not have a pause button on my remote but I do have a rewind button. Kakbhushundi cannot travel backwards in time like I can. History for me is neither a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moment, and nor is it conjecture. I could tell you exactly why the Indus Valley Civilization died out, what happened to Netaji Subhashchandra Bose or the whys and hows of anything you’re puzzled by. But this is a Mythology, FolkTales and History podcast, so we’ll stick to those themes.

That’s all for now. 

Next Time

In the next episode, we’ll dip back into the Mahabharata. We left it at a bit of a turning point with Duryodhan unusually gifting his cousins a wax palace. We’ll rewind a little, just a little to hear the story of Karna. If you heard previous Mahabharat episodes, you may recall the baby whom Kunti set sailing in a little basket down the river. Spoiler alert – the baby survived. That was Karna. And next week we’re hearing his story.

Feedback

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A big thank you to each of you for your continued support and your feedback.

The music is from Purple Planet.

Thanks for listening and I’ll see you next time!