Question!

Indra, also known as Sakra in the Vedas, is the leader of the Devas or gods and the lord of Svargaloka or heaven. He is the God of rain and thunderstorms but at the same time, renowned for his notorious ways. As per Bala Kanda and Padma Purana, an unspeakable sex scandal made an ascetic curse Indra to carry his shame in the form of a thousand vulvae on his body. Read on to know the appalling mythological episode that is sure to leave you thunderstruck...

In the past, Brahma - out of curiosity - had created some beautiful girls, among whom, Ahalya was the best, possessing the highest virtues. Brahma wondered who could be the most appropriate person to look after this girl and thought of Maharishi Gautama, who had the best virtues, sanity and profound intelligence and knowledge of the Vedas. At the time of handing over Ahalya, Brahma told Rishi Gautam to bring her back when she turned young.

Rishi Gautama looked after Ahalya and when she turned into a beautiful young lady, he took her back to Brahma. On seeing the greatness and solemnity of Maharshi Gautama, Brahma got surprised and thought that he should get Ahalya married to the sage. However, the divine beauty of Ahalya had attracted the attention of all the Devas and Asuras by then. Moreover, she was blessed that she would always have the body and beauty of a 16-year-old...

Brahma announced that he would marry Ahalya to the person who would travel around the earth and come back first. On hearing Brahma's words, all the Devtas and Rishis embarked upon their journey. At the same time, while going back to his ashram, Maharshi Gautama saw baby Kamdhenu (divine cow) taking birth. Looking at that site, the sage got overwhelmed by the prominence of the creator and out of respect, did a circumbulation of the cow and a Shivling.

Brahma came to know everything through his meditation powers. He told Rishi Gautama that a cow which had given birth was equal to the earth with seven islands and to move around it (perform parikrama) and the Shivling was equal to travelling around Earth. Brahma was impressed by the patience, knowledge and penance of Rishi Gautam and told him that he deserved to get married to Ahalya.

After the marriage of Rishi Gautam and Ahalya, other devtas and rishis returned, torn by jealousy. Brahma gave the couple Brahmgiri, considered as the ultimate pious place that fulfilled wishes. Even after Lord Brahma had married her to the pure-of-heart sage Gautama, Indra, the king of the gods, kept stalking her...

Indra also watched the habits of the sage and noticed that the sage left his ashram at the dawn of each day. He went away for a couple of hours to the river for his bath and prayers. Unable to bear the pangs of love any more, Indra decided to attain the woman of his heart by subterfuge. Indra convinced the moon to take the form of a cock and wake up Gautama Rishi much before dawn...

On hearing the voice of a cock crowing at 2 AM, the sage went for his holy bath. Indra descended to Earth in the guise of Gautama Rishi and stealthily entered the hut. He demanded of Ahalya to make love to him. Ahalya, being the consort of a powerful yogi, had spiritual powers and was able to see that he who stood in front of her was not her yogi husband, but the king of gods Indra himself.

However, it flattered her that the great deva found her so charming that he ran the risk of being condemned by the worlds and yet came to her asking her for her love. She smiled at him, too pleased to refuse him his inappropriate request. Indra, taking advantage, further seduced her, using sweet lines in praise of her exquisite form. She gave in and the two committed the sin. After this act of romantic consummation was performed, however, Ahalya regained her senses and she asked Indra to leave immediately.

With his lust having been fulfilled, Indra - now really scared of sage Gautama's wrath - hurried to make his exit, but the sage arrived just then with his garments still wet from his ablutions. He took one look at them and realised all that had transpired. As expected, rage erupted on the rishi's countenance and he was quick to curse his wife, the moon and Indra. That is why the moon carries spots, as a penalty for the part it played in the sin.

Then the sage condemned his wife. "Fie on you, Ahalya! Your vanity led you into committing such a grave error. May you lose the form you are so proud of and subsist only on air. Surviving in such a manner, may you become invisible to the world, meriting no more importance than an ordinary rock, for ages to come. Not unless Vishnu himself decides to set foot in this ashrama may you be redeemed."

Then, he turned to Indra, who had still not given up hopes of escaping, and was stealthily walking away. "Where do you go, shameless Lord?" the sage demanded. "Halt in your path, wait for me to grant you what you seek above all else. May your body, the strength of which is the cause of your impudence, be covered by that which you seek and furthermore, may you lose what is needed to unite with it." After cursing them, Gautama abandoned the ashrama and went to the Himalayas.

Ahalya was reduced to a stone and Indra was reduced to a eunuch bearing a thousand vaginas on his body. Indra's predicament became a joke in all the worlds at first, but later proved noticeably tragic. He stayed in darkness and seclusion and could never appear before men or women. This caused much concern to all the gods, as his multifarious duties in various worlds remained suspended, and they went as one to seek Brahma's help.

Brahma prescribed severe penance to Indra, undergoing which, he earned the grace of Shiva. The marks all over his body were transformed into eyes. He came to be regarded from then on as the thousand-eyed god.

Ahalya, meanwhile, spent years in earnest repentance, surviving on nothing but air. As foretold, she became invisible to the world, forsaking her famed beauty and waiting patiently for Vishnu to come to the ashrama some day. Years later, when Rama, Lakshmana and Vishwamitra came visiting the hermitage, Ahalya regained her form after she had been redeemed by the grace of Rama's feet. She joined her husband in the Himalayas and her penance is quoted as an example to this day.

For some scholars, Ahalya is the eternal woman who responds to her inner urges and the advances of the divine ruler - a direct contrast to her ascetic husband, who did not satisfy her carnal desires. They regard Ahalya as an independent woman who makes her own decisions, takes risks and is driven by curiosity to experiment with the extraordinary and then accept the curse imposed on her by a patriarchal society. It is this undaunted acceptance of the curse that makes The Ramayana praise and venerate her.

V R Devika, author of Ahalya: Scarlet Letter, asks, "So is it right to condemn adultery and physical encounters as modern afflictions and against our Indian/Hindu culture? Or do we learn from Ahalya, who made a conscious choice to fulfill her need and yet has been extolled?" Meena Kelkar, author of Subordination of Woman: A New Perspective, feels that Ahalya was made vulnerable due to her acceptance of gender norms; she ungrudgingly accepted the curse while acknowledging her need for punishment.

However, Kelkar adds that another reason for making Ahalya immortal in the scriptures, could be that her punishment acts as a warning and deterrent to women. Patriarchal society always condemns Ahalya as a fallen woman. Jaya Srinivasan, in her discourses on tales from the Hindu epics, says that Ahalya's actions and the resultant curse are a warning that such immoral behaviour leads to doom, although sincere penitence and complete surrender to God can erase the gravest of sins.

In Hindu Tamil weddings in India and Sri Lanka, Ahalya appears as a symbolic black grinding stone, which the bride touches with her foot while promising not to be like Ahalya. The bride is also shown the star associated with the chaste Arundhati, who is cast as her ideal. The well-known treatise on sexual behaviour, the Kama Sutra (301-600), also mentions Ahalya and Indra while discussing how lust destroys men. However, it also urges men to seduce women by telling the romantic tales of Ahalya.