By: Barnali Bose, Editor-ICN World
KOLKATA: For the past few days, a strange message has been doing the rounds proclaiming that our latest omnipresent invader, the invisible and invincible (up to now) Corona will be vanquished today. Before you misquote me, let me put down the disclaimer in black and white.
Disclaimer: It is not I, but a forwarded message that says so.
Well, to continue, who is to be the supposed vanquisher? Well, not plasma therapy from Covid survivors but plasma therapy of the sun. Just to recapitulate, the aura of plasma that surrounds the Sun is also termed Corona. Thus the Corona of the sun is being claimed to be the eradicator of Corona, the deadly virus from the face of the earth. In other words, today’s Solar Eclipse will subjugate Corona.
It is wishful thinking, isn’t it? Well, it sure is. Let me copy and paste the disclaimer once again, lest I be subjected to brickbats.
Disclaimer: It is not I, but a forwarded message that says so.
I can almost hear newsreaders screaming on almost every news channel- ” Finally, Corona kills Corona.” Well, if only it could be true! But there is no scientific base to this claim. I wonder what sadistic pleasure does anyone derive by making such disparaging false claims and thereby misleading people.
Since time immemorial, Man has been witness to the bizarre phenomena of the Solar and Lunar eclipses. It was his awe and fear of the various forces of nature that made man worship its various forms. In Hindu Mythology, there prevailed a belief that Surya Grahan ensued, when Surya Dev was offended by the mortals on earth.
My Brush With Eclipses:
“ Tomorrow,there is a solar eclipse,” announced Granny, with a grim look in her otherwise pleasant countenance. “Oh! No,not again,” was my instinctive response.I remember as a child,eclipse was a word that we verily dreaded and rightly so.There were too many do’s and don’ts to abide by. “ Don’t drink water till the “grahan ‘ is over,my grandmother would grimly state. “…..and what if I am hungry?”, I would ask to which she retorted,“ No food no water.”and obviously“no arguing”,which though left unsaid was obvious.
Before the eclipse commenced,we were made to eat to our full and drink enough water.Tulsi leaves would be scattered on the stored water.Extra food,if any was literally thrown away.Even the street dogs were not allowed to partake it as it was considered poisonous and thus inedible.We had to accept confinement with our grandmother keeping an eagle’s eye over us.What if we munched a biscuit on the sly?
Having a very inquisitive bent of mind,I flooded her with a volley of questions to which she simply said, “Do as I tell you.”It reminded me of the poem The Charge of the light Brigade.The words “There’s not to question why,There’s but to do and die ….”echoed in my ears. In this case we were not to question why (because as my mother said, “Granny knows best”) but to die of thirst and hunger.
I do not know about others but somehow I noticed that during eclipses,I was always inexplicably hungrier than usual. It is perhaps human psychology that one always wishes to ‘taste the forbidden fruit’.
However when the sun or the moon had emerged from its captivity,we had to cleanse ourselves with a refreshing bath. Needless to say, my mother was made to sprinkle holy Ganga water in every nook and corner of the house. We too were not spared.
Years passed by, but time had not waned the superstitions deeply embedded in my granny and passed over to my mother. I was then already a married woman and expecting my first child . It was a lunar eclipse and I still remember the ordeal I had to go through.
Besides being instructed not to eat or drink,I was made to lie down on my back for the entire period and sternly warned not to touch any sharp object specially not to cut anything with a knife or scissors. “If you cut anything with scissors your baby will be born cleft-lipped,” I was warned. Perhaps, it was the fear of the unknown that had cast a shadow on my reasoning and I, usually a rebel, quietly did as told.
However,with time, reason won over superstition in my family and no eclipse can deter us from carrying on with our daily activities.
Mythical legends and traditional practices
While in the modern world,eclipses are considered to be celestial events celebrated with road trips,viewing parties,astronomy talks and student projects,in the yesteryears, eclipses were believed to be harbingers of misfortune, death and destruction. Myths,legends and superstitions have shrouded eclipses in mystery.
Hindu Mythology states that Rahu was beheaded by the Gods for drinking Amrit, the nectar of the Gods.Since then, Rahu’s head flies across the sky and swallows the sun thereby causing an eclipse.Believers pray for the release of the sun God. Devotees take a dip in holy rivers, perform rituals and women blow conch shells to keep demons away.
Manuscripts show that the Babylonians and the ancient Chinese could predict solar eclipses as early as 2500 BCE.’Chih ‘, the Chinese word for eclipse means ‘to eat’. In ancient China,a celestial dragon was thought to eat up the sun.
A Chinese legend says that Hsi and Ho, two Chinese astrologers were executed as they failed to predict the eclipse that occured on October 22 2134 BCE (supposedly the oldest solar eclipse recorded in History).This was because it was believed that failing to predict a Solar eclipse endangered the life of the king.
In 1133,August 2,King Henry 1 died shortly after a solar eclipse, reinforcing the belief that solar eclipses are bad omens for the rulers. This belief was echoed by the Mesopotamians who installed a substitute king to bear the brunt of the eclipse. Needless to say the temporary king would mysteriously disappear and the original monarch reinstated on the throne.
Tibetan Buddhists believe that deeds,good or bad, during a lunar eclipse get multiplied. A native American tribe called Hupa believed the moon had 20 wives and a lot of pets,most of these being mountain lions and snakes. When the moon did not bring them enough food to eat,they attacked and made him bleed.
To the Luiseno tribe, a lunar eclipse signified the moon falling ill brought back to health by chanting prayers .The Tlingit people of North America believed that the Sun and his wife,the moon caused eclipses to happen when they sought privacy.
In Vietnam, it was believed that a giant frog would devour the sun while Norse cultures blamed wolves for eating the sun.In 632 Bc January 27, prophet Muhammad’s son Ibrahim died during a solar eclipse.Korean folklore suggests that solar eclipses happen because mythical dogs are trying to eat the sun.
In sharp contrast to the above mentioned beliefs,the Greek historian, Herodotus says that a solar eclipse in 565 BCE was instrumental in the cessation of war raging between the Lydians and the Medes.The dark skies,they believed, was a divine intervention for peace making. In Italy, it is believed that plants sowed during Solar eclipses bear the brightest of flowers than any other time of the year.
Traditionally, people in many cultures, bang pots and pans during a solar eclipse to scare demons away.The Inca feared that a lunar eclipse was caused by a jaguar eating the moon.Afraid that the jaguar would then attack the earth they would try to ward off the predator by throwing spears at the moon and making a pandemonium by beating up their dogs to make them bark and howl.
The use of Eclipse in Literature:
A fragment of a lost poem by Archilochus (680-645 BCE ) who was a Greek poet and soldier depicts a total Solar eclipse;
“Nothing there is beyond hope
Nothing can be sworn impossible,
nothing wonderful,since Zeus,
father of the Olympians,
made night from mid-day,
hiding the light of the shining sun,
and sore fear came upon men.”
Shakespeare uses eclipse to symbolise a bad omen in King Lear,Hamlet ,Othello, and Antony and Cleopatra besides others. In Mark Twain’s A Connecticut Yankee at King Arthur’s Court, the yankee evades sure execution by making a medieval court believe he is empowered to darken the sun. The yankee stands for none else but Christopher Columbus himself who used a similar ploy to save himself in Jamaica.
An insight:
An eclipse may come,an eclipse may go but Human civilization goes on forever.In the Medieval ages, man was blinded by superstitions. From the embers of the Dark ages as we call it, man’s questioning attitude ushered the Renaissance-the birth of new ideas that manifested into the Modern Age.
Rabindranath Tagore envisioned a world
“…..Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way
Into the dreary desert sand of dead habit
Where the mind is led forward by thee
Into ever-widening thought and action…..”
Indeed, let not regressive thoughts and baseless beliefs eclipse our power to observe, analyse and infer. Let our actions remain unhinged by superstitions that divert us from the path of progression.
Long live eclipses! May longer live Reason.
