This is for Leena Jacob and Supriya Shanbhag Moffitt the Trishanku story as written in my The Sacred India Tarot... he is The Hanging Man “Trishanku was originally a King like Rama, ruling from Ayodhya … The King, first called Satyavrata, seemed to have led rather a typical boring king’s life … One day however, he was seized with the strange desire to ascend to heaven in his bodily form, a process that is usually possible only when the flesh falls away in death. The usual procedure for achieving the impossible in Hindu myth, is a Yagna, a great Fire Sacrifice/festival. Satyavrata’s guru, the great sage Vasishta, refused to officiate in a proceeding that smacked only too strongly of hubris. Royalty is impervious to rebuffs however, and he approached the sons of the sage to act as officiating priests, calculating that they would be desirous of position and influence with him. The outraged sages cursed him to lose his royal status and become a Chandala, the worst form of outcaste, and a punishment far worse than death. “In this miserable condition, he chanced upon the sage Vishwamitra, the great rival of Vasishta. This worthy was a holy terror in the literal, as well as metaphorical sense. Originally a king himself, he felt humiliated by Vasishta’s display of spiritual might, and he set about acquiring spiritual stature in the universe with a demented determination that eventually humbled the gods. At this point, he was only a Rajarishi, a Royal sage, while Vasishta was a Brahmarishi, the pinnacle of spiritual evolution and his ultimate goal. Vishwamitra might have looked like no match for the other sage, but the whole world was to see how wrong they were. He was not called the tiger amongst Rishis for nothing. He promised to set Vasishta’s nose out of joint, and he was not the man to be above a little malicious compassion. “The sons of Vasishta tried to thwart the Yagna (Fire Sacrifice) Vishwamitra was holding for the purpose. The rage of the sage burst forth, and he incinerated them with a curse and condemned them to outcaste status for seven hundred more births to boot. “That took care of all earthly opposition, but when the power of the sacrifice caused the body of Trishanku to ascend to heaven, the gods formed an unwelcoming committee at the gates, and hurled him back down to earth. The poor man was speeding head downwards in space towards Earth, when the angry Vishwamitra halted him, upside down as he was. He then proceeded to create a new set of constellations around the Hanging Man. Finally he decided to replace the King of the gods with Trishanku. By which time, the universe was in turmoil, so the gods agreed to make Trishanku an immortal, eternally suspended between heaven and earth. They also agreed that in the next cycle of creation, he would ascend to the position of the King of the gods. He is still out there in the constellation of stars known as the Trishanku Nakshatras. His long inverted sojourn is spent in meditation and increasing Awareness – an accumulation of spiritual power that will get him the position of King of the Gods as his just desserts, not because of his desires and will power alone. It is therefore a spiritual discipline he is undergoing. “… … As a myth of what is possible by the determined application of will, and as an allegory for rising above one’s oppressive caste destiny, the myth cannot be better. Though it becomes a story of the great sage, it is set into motion only because the King has thoughts that nobody had before, simply because they did not think it was possible. He is a great opener up of the human spirit, unwilling to accept perceived wisdom as the last word on any subject. It is like a living illustration of Blake’s famous dictum, ‘The tigers of wrath are wiser than the horses of instruction.’” The Hanging Man, just past the Major Arcana tipping-point, marks the place where reversals happen – a change of direction. Some call this, the most profound card of the Tarot – so profound, that prediction drowns, and a reader will terminate the session. It is the deck’s messiah – the anointed One who submits to the world’s tight place, and allows the waters through. The bodhisattva’s expression, as time in his strange situation ceases, is always radiant and serene. The Hanging Man evolves revolution. You are welcome
Posted on: Thu, 05 Jun 2014 04:38:42 +0000
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