Emotions recochet in a human society. One's anger creates a ripple in mass psyche. Negative emotions eventually boomerang to its source per ancient belief system. The story of Jalandhar in the Puranas loses its complexity when understood against this boomerang effect. Jalandhar was a demon born of Shiva's anger against Indra. Events in Jalandhar's life eventually bring him in conflict with Shiva. The narrator of the story weaves several smaller boomerangs into the main plot. Lakshmi's sisterly attachment to Jalandhar brings a predicament for her own husband. Despondency lands in Vishnus lap in return for his stealing the identity of Jalandhar. The story concludes with the birth of the divine plant Tulasi.Sri Sri Ravishankar explains that the ancients created the Puranas to convey certain Tattvas or principles. One can understand Tattvas in the Puranas by intellectual analysis. Those who like Puranas for their story value should be cautious in drawing factual conclusions from them. Vedas praise Indra as the thousand eyed. Indra is thus a metaphor for collective mind. It is a fact that a million chinese strived to create the forbidden city in Beijing. The palaces in forbidden city are the achievment of mass mind, the principle of Indra. Collective mind however can behave like a mob without proper direction.
Shiva's anger was against unrefined collective mind, in the story of Jalandhar. The story hints of unrefined consciousness through the inability of Indra to recognize Shiva in disguise. Brihaspati, of refined wisdom, immediately recognized Shiva. The other instances in the story can also be studied similarly. The idea for this blog is from Sri Sri Ravishankar's explanation on the metaphor nature of stories.
