(South and Central Asian mythology)
Hindu seers. These, divinely inspired sages composed the Vedic hymns, which in symbolic language convey the inner mysteries and deepest philosophy of Aryan belief. They were the forerunners and founders of the brahmins, their poetry extending the religious horizons of the invading pastoralists. In a state of samadhi, they experienced visions of the cosmic unity of the universe, an inward revelation that is indicated in the title of ‘the seven rishis’ people called them prajapatis, ‘the mindborn sons’ of Brahma. The oldest list includes the names of Gotama, Bharadwaja, Viswamitra, Jamad-agni, Vasishtha, Kasyapa, and Atri.
Of Bharadwaja it is said that ‘he lived through three lives’, after which ‘he became immortal and ascended to the heavenly world, to union with the sun‘. Jamad-agni had a more adventful span, his single life being that of a warrior brahmin. Having mastered all holy lore, he took as his spouse Renuka, a solar princess, who bore him five sons and shared in his ascetic life. One day she went to bathe and saw a loving couple in the shallows of the river, a sight that filled her with envious desire. Perceiving her ‘fallen from perfection and shorn of the lustre of sanctity’, Jamad-agni reproved her and commanded in turn her sons to kill her. Four of the boys refused and were cursed to idiocy by the enraged father, but the fifth, Parasurama, obeyed the order, striking off Renuka's head with a single blow of his axe. This act of obedience calmed Jamad-agni, and he asked his faithful son to make a request. Parasurama begged that his mother might be restored to her purity and that his brothers might regain their wits. All this the warrior brahmin granted. A second legend allots Parasurama a decisive role too. When the thousand-armed Kartavirya visited their hermitage during the absence of Jamad-agni and his sons, he abused Renuka's hospitality by tearing up the trees around the dwelling and stealing the call of the sacred cow, Surabhi, which the warrior brahmin had earned through austerities. Parasurama went in pursuit and slew Kartavirya, but the sons of the thief staged a surprise counter attack that cruelly killed Jamad-agni. On finding his father's corpse, Parasurama swore that he would extirpate all the kshatriyas. Twenty-seven times did he carry out his oath.
The myths surrounding Vasishtha, ‘most wealthy’, and Viswamitra, the son of Gadhi, who was an incarnation of Indra, receive separate treatment elsewhere, but a word or two needs to be said about the other original rishis. Atri, ‘the eater’, was later held to have been the father of Soma, the moon, as well as the ascetic Dattatreya, in whom a portion of Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva was incarnate. To Gotama is ascribed authorship of a book on law, while Kasyapa, ‘tortoise’, relates to Vishnu as an aspect of Time. As vamanaavatara, Vishnu was born as a dwarf, the son of Kasyapa and Aditi, ‘the unbounded’, a personification of visible heavens. The seven rishis are represented in the sky by the seven stars of the Great Bear constellation.
Bhrigu and Daksha were added to this illustrious company in the course of time. They were then called the nine brahma-rishis. Bhrigu, the son of Manu, was once asked by the other rishis to ascertain which deity was best entitled to the homage of a brahmin. Shiva's quarrel with his wife prevented Bhrigu from making any contact, so the sage obliged the god to assume the form of a lingam. With Brahma the questing seer had little more success because that deity's self-conceit ruled out a sensible conversation. Therefore, Bhrigu excluded Brahma from regular worship and hurried on to Vishnu, whom he found asleep. Indignant at this indifference to the world, the rishi stamped his foot and woke the reclining god, who instead of showing anger gently pressed Bhrigu's offending foot as a sign of respect. The deity and the rishi conversed, and satisfied with this encounter, the latter returned to his fellow sages with the report that only Vishnu deserved the worship of gods and men, which was unanimously accepted.
Daksha, ‘intelligent, able,’ was the son of Brahma, springing from the god's right thumb. Daksha and Aditi were conceived as interdependent; she was eternal, infinite, beyond limitation and bounds, while he was the spirit within, the generator of the gods in eternity. According to the Mahabharata, Daksha went through a rebirth as the result of a curse by his son-in-law Shiva. The tale of Daksha's sacrifice to Vishnu turns on another misunderstanding with Shiva, who violently interrupted the ritual and laid into the worshippers with devastating effect. Indra was knocked flat, Yama had his staff broken, the goddess Saraswati lost her nose, Mitra's eyes were gouged out, Pushan had his teeth punched down his throat, Bhrigu's beard was torn off, and other gods and rishis buffeted, stabbed, trampled, and pierced. The author of the catastrophe, Daksha, who had forgotten to invite Shiva to the ceremony, was decapitated and his head thrown into the sacrificial fire. After due apology and entreaty Shiva consented to restore his victims; though Daksha had to manage with the head of a ram since his own could not be found. A variant of this myth has Shiva's blazing trident destroy Daksha's sacrifice and fall with an immense impact on the chest of Vishnu. The consequent fight between them only ceased on Brahma's intervention: he persuaded Shiva, as Rudra, to propitiate Vishnu, as Narayana, ‘He who moves in the waters’.
