Tripura – Shiva – {Ep.146}

In this episode, we’re doing the story of Tripura, featuring all of the Holy Trinity of Indian Mythology. The story also features a brilliant architect, the fountain of life, a bull that can drink significantly more water than you’d expect, and flying cities that are practically invulnerable. Except once a millennium, when a single arrow has the potential to destroy all three, but only if fired by a very specific God.

Our story starts not with the cities themselves, but the circumstances that led to their creation.

We start with an Asura, Tarakasura. I should just call him Tarak, the asura at the end is redundant. Now the Asuras were in a constant struggle with the Devs. You can consider the Devs and Asuras as different dynasties originating from sisters who had an intense rivalry. We’ll cover the Dev and Asura origin story in an upcoming episode, but for now, suffice it to say that members of these two dynasties were on rather unfriendly terms with each other.

Tarak was following in his father’s footsteps. By trying to kill as many Devs as he could. His father Vajranaka had done something similar in his time. And now Tarak was repeatedly attacking Swarg or Heaven, the realm of the Devs. Until it was on the verge of collapse.

He had a big army and tanks and weapons that didn’t run out of fuel and morale as they approached Swarg. His confidence was driven by the fact that he had a boon. No prizes for guessing who gave him that boon. It was my dad, Brahma, the creator of the Universe. If you haven’t heard previous episodes, my dad and his tendency to grant crazy superpowers to anyone and everyone who prays to him. You wanted powers to destroy the Universe? You wanted to evaporate all of the water off of Earth? Sure all of those were possible, all you had to do was to pray to Brahma.

So Brahma made Tarak invincible. That meant no one could hurt him physically. Or even financially – meaning no one could locate his offshore financial accounts to freeze his assets.

Now, Brahma for all his faults has one thing going for him. He manages to always put in some fine print so no one is absolutely invincible. For example, he made Ravana super powerful but also made it possible for him to be defeated by a human. The human was really an avatar of Vishnu, but that’s not the point.

In this case, Tarak’s Achilles heel was that there was one very specific scenario in which he could be defeated. It required a son of Shiva, the destroyer. And since Shiva was a bachelor and lived in Mount Kailash. Because Tarak felt that Mount Kailash was a cold and inhospitable place for any potential partner, it seemed unlikely to him that Shiva would become a parent anytime soon. 

He was mistaken though. Because Shiva did marry Parvati. Thanks to some Devs who played matchmaker. And the two had a child. Kartikeya, Murugan, or Skanda. He has many names. But you have met Kartikeya before in episode 6.5 – all in the family, when I challenged him to race his brother Ganesh. 

As a battle between the Asurs and Devs raged on, I helped mediate some of the attempts to talk peace. It was not looking good for the Devs. They were under siege for a while and supplies were running low. During the peace negotiations, Tarak’s minister for propaganda had gone on and on about the expansion of the Devs and how the Asurs had nowhere to retreat to. But they weren’t afraid to take back Swarg, which they claimed was theirs anyway. The minister claimed further that the Devs organization called Neighborly Asura Trespass-prevention Organization or NATO was simply an excuse to eradicate Asurs and their way of life. And they had all the weapons to do something about it. The minister would have agreed with Tarakasura that NATO’s true meaning was the New Anti-Tarakasur organization. 

The talks ended without any conclusion. But like I said it was looking pretty bad for the Devs here. They didn’t know that Kartikeya was capable of defeating Tarak. Tarak had worked hard to keep Brahma’s fine print a secret. But it is impossible to keep such knowledge from me. I have complete knowledge of the past, the present and the future.

I knew then what I must do.

So over drinks at the conclusion of a fruitless day of talks, I might have accidentally let it slip to a low level Dev that Kartikeya was the key to victory here. And it worked, just as I knew it would. The low level Dev almost choked on his drink. He muttered an apology about a hastily remembered prior commitment and rushed from the scene. 

Of course, he went straight to Indra and told him everything. Indra knows me, and he knows that I know everything. Besides, the Devs were rather desperate at that moment not knowing how to repel this Asur invasion. They could have defeated Tarak’s army if Tarak hadn’t been there. But the Asur was rubbing his invincibility in their faces.

But now the Devs had an important overnight mission before going into the peace talks and/or battle the next day. They made a quick side trip to Kailash. Kartikeya was luckily at home rather than in school as you might expect given his young age at the time. Upon hearing the Devs, he said of course, he would gladly help the Devs out. After all, some of them had helped him out the last time he was working on his school science project.

Well, Kartikeya made short work of Taraka. It was a moment similar to the India vs West Indies 1983 cricket world cup. No one looking at the odds objectively would have bet on Kartikeya, considering Tarak’s strike rate. But the underdog won. It almost embarrassed the Devs to see Kartikeya pretty much swat away what had been their toughest opponent.

There were celebrations all around, of the scale when Harry Potter had defeated Lord Voldemort under similar odds. But the Asur camp was the opposite. Asurs were quietly exiting the scene for fear of persecution by an overly enthusiastic group of Devs.

In particular, three of the Asurs that quietly exited the scene were the sons of Tarak. Tarakaksha, Vidyunmaali, Kamalaksha, also collectively called Tripurasur, for reasons we’ll see soon enough. The trio did not go into hiding. They instead went to the Himalayas.

Now you might be asking, were they going to try and take revenge on Kartikeya? But no. That would have been foolish. For one, they would be in the wrong mountain range. Mount Kailash is in the Kailash range, not in the Himalayas. For another, Kartikeya’s father, Shiva, has the power to destroy the Universe. So they couldn’t even dream of revenge. Instead they prayed to Brahma.

Several years and decades of prayers later, Brahma appeared before them. He was ready to grant them anything. The Tripurasurs had done their research. What they needed Brahma to do was to create something for them.

“A city for each of us please!” they implored. “We don’t have a place to call home. Ever since the Devs defeated and killed our Dad”

“You want a place? And you’re asking me?” asked Brahma. “I mean look at me, I live in an oversize lotus”

The Tripurasurs looked at each other blankly. Not the response they had expected from the Creator of the Universe.

“Relax,” said Brahma. “I’m only kidding. It’s my favorite real-estate joke. I’ve been saving up for it. And for a very long time now. Because no one asks for real estate stuff anymore. It’s always invincibility and powers to destroy and so on.”

“Err. speaking of which,” said Tarakaksha “we would like those cities invincible please”

“There we go again,” sighed Brahma. “I’m tired of explaining this to everyone who prays. There’s no such thing as perfect invincibility. There has to be a clause in there somewhere that allows destruction at some point or the other.”

They argued a bit back and forth on what the clause could be. And finally settled on a few things. Number 1 – the cities would really be giant spaceships that were completely mobile. One of those would travel on the Earth, another in the Sky and the third in Heaven. Number 2 – the cities would have walls of iron, silver and gold. Which really shows more affluence than military intelligence. Because Gold is both malleable and ductile. The smallest projection would bend the walls out of shape, and then where were you. But this was probably made up by Number 3 – the cities could only be all at once by a single arrow. And Number 4 – the cities would move on their own, according to fixed orbital mechanics, so their position in space was predictable. But to compensate Brahma promised to minimize the time that the three cities were in a straight line. That time would be a single second. Which made it okay according to the Tripurasurs, because the arrow would have to travel at nearly light speed. Not impossible, but the energy that would need to be expended to fire such an arrow was ridiculously out of bounds for practically everyone. However, practically everyone is not the same as everyone. As we’ll see later in the story.

Brahma made his notes and said, done, your wish is granted.

The Tripurasurs looked at each other. “Where? How?” they asked.

They didn’t see any cities floating about.

“If you were expecting me to just hand you the keys, you’re sadly mistaken” said Brahma.

“Best I can do these days is to give your chief architect Mayasur some blueprints and an endless supply of raw material, so he can have the cities constructed for you”

The brothers were disappointed but they didn’t show it. After Brahma left, the trio headed down the mountain grumbling about how they should have prayed to Vishnu or Shiva instead.

But when they got back to what used to be their home, they found Mayasur with his head bent over a large stack of blueprints.

It didn’t take them long to convince Mayasur to build the cities. Maya was himself already convinced that the Asurs needed a home. And a flying city was something he had never attempted, but by jove these blueprints were the real deal. This would be a pleasure to build, he said. He began work right away. 

He asked for workers, but no one was available. They had to advertise far and wide. Mayasur also confidently advertised some very generous sign-on bonuses and promised a worker friendly culture with catered meals, generous PTO and daily happy hours. The workers came by the hundreds, then thousands and then millions.

He didn’t actually reveal how he was funding a fun corporate culture. Ostensibly it was via the endless supply of raw material that Brahma had promised. But he did not reveal it to the Tripurasurs. He brushed aside their questions lightly and continued the work.

With the millions of workers at his disposal, it is no surprise then that construction on the three cities completed quickly. The workers were invited to bring their families and live in the cities. They were happy about this, and things were going great! The cities were nothing short of paradise. There were beautiful parkways and gardens and every comfort was considered in the design of these cities. There was one fountain in Mayasur’s home that was considered strictly off limits, but other than that, children could be observed playing in the parks and streets, people were walking about, chatting, thinking of which exotic part of the Universe they should move the city to next.

In short, things were perfect. Almost. Some fault lines began to appear when one by one, the Tripurasur brothers grew confident in their cities’ invincibility and stopped praying to Shiva. Maya continued to pray to Shiva however. He alone believed that Shiva was indeed capable of firing a near light speed arrow.

But the Tripurasur brothers, overconfident in their abilities, started doing what their father had done. They started raiding and looting the Devs and Rishis all over the world. They also renamed their cities, they called them Death Star 1, Death Star 2, and Starkiller Base. Those names alone will strike fear in the Devs, thought the Tripurasurs.

It got to the point that the Devs were frustrated and angry. They were angry with my Dad yet again for a wish gone horribly wrong.

Well this one time my Dad was prepared. He had the signed document ready and raised it triumphantly to the Devs who had approached him.

“Don’t worry. I designed a weakness in the whole thing. Their cities can be destroyed”

But when they had read the fine print, none of the Devs thought they were capable of firing such an arrow. That’s when Brahma suggested they talk to his buddy in the Holy Trinity, Shiva.

The delegation went to Mount Kailash and appealed for some intervention. Shiva understood and was ready to help. He sent his home defense system – a bull called Nandi whom we have encountered before on this show.

Nandi was a no-nonsense kind of warrior who led a section of the army against Vidyunmaali while the Devs led by Indra himself went against Tarakaksha’s city, the Death Star. 

The battle was fierce and not at all one-sided. Nandi had no trouble destroying Vidyunmaali and his army as they were battling outside of the protective walls of Vidyunmaali’s city, the other Death Star.

But Tarakaksha survived Indra’s onslaught and retreated into his city’s walls.

The cities suffered no physical damage, but the emotional damage here was done. Tarakaksha and Kamalaksha were grieving over the body of their fallen brother. They had done everything together and now their trio was down to two.

They had someone fetch Mayasur to give him the bad news. Maya was off praying to Shiva somewhere in a quiet spot. When he got the news, he rushed to the scene.

But strangely there wasn’t any sorrow or pain in his eyes. Just a heightened sense of urgency.

“Quick, bring Vidyunmali to my garden” he commanded.

The two brothers concluded that Maya had gone mad with grief. But he repeated his order strongly this time. Tarakaksha and Kamalaksha decided to humor him and see where it led.

They were surprised when Mayasur took them straight to the one off-limits fountain he had and splashed some water onto Vidyunmaali’s body.

They got a bigger surprise when Vidyunmaali got up and asked what was for dinner, because he didn’t know about his brothers, but all that fighting had made him hungry.

So it turned out that Maya had a fountain the waters of which could restore life! He explained that he had gotten that just in case for situations exactly like this one. He had created the fountain and its water the same way he had created all the raw material for the cities, and the hefty compensation packages for all those millions of workers. He had in his hands special powers as a side effect of Brahma granting the brothers’ wishes. For whatever reason, Brahma had not reversed the effects when the cities were constructed, but Maya explained that was a very good thing for them. Maya demonstrated by having a jet of burgers shoot out of his hands and aimed towards Vidyunmaali. They worked perfectly, which made Vidyunmaali even happier.

But the Tripurasur brothers had very sinister thoughts going through their minds. They were ready to take bigger risks now that they had a guaranteed way of getting their lives back.

They began attacking the Devs with renewed passion. The scoreboard began heavily tilting in the Asurs favor, as every casualty on their side was easily and quickly revived using the waters from the fountain of life. Their renewed attacks actually managed to do something that nothing else seems to be able to. It knocked the Earth out of its orbit.

Now luckily for us, Vishnu who is the preserver had something to say about it. Vishnu took the form of a bull and used his horns to grab the Earth before it went too far out of its habitable zone around the Sun. He brought it back into a stable orbit around the Sun. But the bull’s work wasn’t done.

He dashed into Starkiller Base and rushed for Mayasur’s garden. He made a mess everywhere he could find, but then that was what he was here for. He wanted to be disruptive like a Bull in a china shop.

Vishnu went straight to the fountain and began drinking the water. Many Asurs tried to stop him of course, but none succeeded. There was nothing else they could do. The water was soon all gone. The fountain was drained empty.

That by itself should have completely deflated the Asurs but they continued to fight. This time they were fighting not for revenge or to wreak havoc on the Devs, but this time they were fighting to protect their own existence. 

Which was pointless as they soon realized, because Shiva himself entered the battle. The Tripurasur brothers consulted their watches and realized that it was time for the cities to be exactly in a straight line. Shiva did not hesitate, he knew the time for action was now. So he let fly an arrow at an immeasurable speed! The moment he fired it though, Shiva had doubts creep over him. Mayasur had done nothing to deserve this. He had been a non-participating member, and a strict devotee of Shiva. And yet he was going to be destroyed now.

Well, it’s a good thing Nandi has this mental connection with Shiva. That’s why Nandi rushed to the place where Mayasur was praying and moved him off. He was not a moment too soon. Because Shiva’s arrow hit its mark as expected. All three of its marks.

Nothing was left. The salvage operation took centuries. And though Asurs searched far and wide for flight data recorders from the crashed spaceships, they found nothing.

That’s all for now

Some notes on the show

Tripura is not actually related to the State of Tripura. The state in North East India got its name from one of a few different sources. One of those was a King Tripur who was descended from Yayati and therefore related to most of the main characters of the Mahabharata.

Another theory is that the name originated from Tripura Sundari, the supreme goddess in the Shaktiism branch of the Hindu religion. This branch assumes that the Supreme Goddess is the power or Shakti that everyone else derives their power from. More on that in future episodes.

We have encountered more Dev vs Asur fights before. In Episode 27 – the Rise of Shukracharya and Episode 28 – His Girl Friday. Also a rare instance of cooperation in the Samudra Manthan episodes – 51 – Oceans Rising, 52 – Oceans Rising Higher and 53 – Open the Quantum Gate. That collaboration ended in disaster as well. At least for the Asurs.

Mayasura has a bigger role to play in other stories, including the Mahabharata. He retained his architectural skills and those may have triggered some central events in that epic. But we’ll see that when we get to that part of the Mahabharata.

The creation of the Asurs is a separate story that deserves an episode by itself. We’ll cover that in an upcoming episode.

Next Time

For the next episode though, we’ll actually cover a real historical person. Some people have requested to hear the story of Chennamma the Rani of Kittur, whose courageous stance against the British Invasion preceded the more well-known Rani of Jhansi by a few decades.