When I was in graduate
school, there was a physics colloquium that left a deep impression on me. The
speaker, presumably a physicist with a religious bent (or at least curiosity)
was trying to explain in scientific terms the miracle of Jesus walking on water
– specifically his walking on the Sea of Galilee to approach the ship carrying
his disciples in stormy weather.
Jesus walking on water is one
of the fundamental miracles of the Christian faith. The colloquium speaker,
however, contended that the event had a simpler explanation that was less than
divine. In his view, it was a matter of optical illusion – a mirage of sorts. In
high wind and darkness, when Jesus was walking on the beach and coming toward the
ship -- which the storm had forced to remain close to the shore -- he simply
appeared to be walking on water. When Peter actually tried to step on the sea
to get to his master, he nearly drowned and was rescued by Jesus in relatively
shallow waters.
The speaker tried to buttress
his point with pictures of beaches on the Sea of Galilea under various weather
conditions. But what intrigued me most about his explanation was not so much the
science itself as the willingness to bring scientific scrutiny to bear upon
religious events that are imbued with faith but are of questionable
historicity. Here was a case study of science facing religion, I thought
appreciatively, and almost facing off against it.
Later in life, I became
friendly with an Englishman who taught mathematics in college and who had
“found faith,” in his words, as a young man. Talking to him, and also other
religious Christians with a rational or scientific mind, I found that they had
certain discomfort with many of the so-called miracles of their faith. This is
especially true of Roman Catholicism where, even to this day, two miracles
vouched for by observers are considered sine qua non for the canonization of a
deceased person to sainthood.
This exposure to faith and
science had the following effect on me. I began to think that the faith I
inherited at birth, namely Hinduism, ought to be subjected to similar
scientific scrutiny. I began to make statements to that effect, to anyone who
would listen, without quite realizing or properly articulating what I meant. To
begin with, I was not sure which miracles to scrutinize. While Hinduism is full
of mythological stories, wherein deities interact with humans and perform
wondrous acts, there are relatively few miracles with all human agents. The
handful of modern ones – typically, snakes protecting babies, Sai Baba remotely
sending aromatic ashes to his devotees, or statues of Lord Ganesha dispensing
milk through tusks – are too mundane to merit a thorough investigation and
debunking.
Recently, however, I
discovered a huge gap in my knowledge. I learnt that Bengali authors of a
previous generation had indeed grappled with certain stories widely popular in
the Hindu faith, and tried to bring the divine down to the merely mortal. I am
referring here, in particular, to how Kunti conceived her children in the
Mahabharata.
Per the story as narrated in
the Hindu epic, Kunti was an unmarried princess who, at her father’s behest,
took on the task of looking after and providing hospitality to the irascible
sage, Durvasa, when he came to visit their kingdom. Durvasa was very pleased
with her effort and gave her a mantra as a boon, through the incantation of
which she could invoke any god and bear a child by him. The young Kunti,
naturally curious, tried the mantra once before marriage and had a child
(Karna) by the Sun god. Later, after being married to Pandu and becoming aware
of his curse (of certain death during copulation, which might arguably be a fig
leaf for impotence), she got her husband’s permission to have three sons by
three different gods, and taught the mantra to Pandu’s second wife, Madri, to
let her bring forth twins.
This story at some level
screams for scientific rebuttal, and I found out that it was given by two
stalwarts of Bengali literature. First, Samaresh Basu, writing as Kalkut,
posited that the boon story was nonsense and Karna was in fact the love child
of Rishi Durvasa. Next Prativa Basu went a step further and speculated that the
children of both Kunti and Madri were fathered by Pandu’s half-brother, Vidura.
Both these explanations are
entirely plausible, but that is not the point I wish to make. Rather, I wish to
explore why (aside from my limited knowledge of literature on the whole) I was
not aware of these alternate stories for fifty-odd years, why these stories
never got traction or currency to compete with the version described in the
Mahabharata. The explanation, I believe, lies in the human reaction to
miracles, myths and their intersection with faith. For the reasons described
below, I have now tempered my previous enthusiasm for the use of scientific
methodology to challenge tall religious tales.
First of all, Mahabharata, at
some level is a soap opera on paternity. Hardly any of the chief protagonists
is a son (or daughter) of their putative father. The epic is instead full of
juicy stories about who fathered whom and how. The Kauravas cannot trace their
lineage to King Kuru, nor are the Pandavas biological children of King Pandu.
Draupadi emerges not as a baby from her mother’s womb but as a fully-formed
young woman from King Drupad’s yagna fire. To speculate and insert characters
like Durvasa and Vidura into this paternity mix, howsoever logical, is therefore
not scandalous per se – simply quotidian. The modified narrative is unexciting
to the secular, sacrilegious to the devout, and is of limited interest overall.
Second, unlike a miracle,
which typically involves ordinary humans, myths by definition involve
supernatural beings and deities or demigods. As a result, they are far more
difficult to put under the scientific microscope. Mahabharata’s stories, mostly
paranormal and mythological, are therefore harder to bring under the ambit of
scientific inquiry.
Third, even for religious
miracles from the Bible or the Koran, it is not clear how many people truly
care about their possible scientific interpretation. I have heard attempts to
explain the parting of the Red Sea by Moses, and its subsequent reversion to
drown the Egyptian Army, in terms of dams, water diversion and breached levees.
I do not see any sign that such explanations have gotten hold of the popular
imagination. On the contrary, people seem content to fantasize about tall tales
and not worry overmuch about their reality or scientific credibility.
Finally, there is the
question of faith. Faith essentially consists of a willing suspension of
disbelief, but it is more than that. It is a type of suspension of disbelief
suffused with soulful spirituality. Empirical science appears there as an
unwelcome intruder, unless you are inclined to challenge the basic spirituality
itself. The devout will never be swayed by ordinary logic.
Let me summarize this way. I
am still deeply impressed by scientists trying to explain Biblical miracles in
empirical terms. I still hold that Hindu beliefs need to be subjected to a
similar scrutiny. But I also realize that such challenges make sense for the
modern-day milk-dispensing Ganesha rather than mythologies from Hindu epics or
puranas. Certain myths, after all, cannot be framed in terms of scientific
inquiry: God saving Isaac from being sacrificed by Abraham in the Old
Testament; the angel Gabriel foretelling the birth of Jesus to Virgin Mary in
the New Testament; or Prophet Muhammad’s overnight trip from Mecca to Jerusalem
in Islam are but some examples. I am now more inclined to put
a majority of stories from ancient Hindu scriptures in that category.
[AMITABHA BAGCHI JUNE 2016]
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