life is too short for a diary
Weekly Logs from Apr 14 to 21, 2025
Dear Vishi, this is my weekly logs from Apr 14 to 21, 2025.
Snapshot of my habits
| Activity | Streak | Count | Logging |
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Thousand Eyes
Indira, in Hindu mythology, has thousand eys. I didn't knew that. Here's a quote from Rig Veda 1.23.3.
इ॒न्द्र॒वा॒यू म॑नो॒जुवा॒ विप्रा॑ हवन्त ऊ॒तये॑ । स॒ह॒स्रा॒क्षा धि॒यस्पती॑ ॥
इन्द्रवायू मनोजुवा विप्रा हवन्त ऊतये । सहस्राक्षा धियस्पती ॥
The wise invoke, for their preservation, Indra and Vāyu, who are swift as thought, have a thousand eyes, and are protectors of pious acts.
There's a short film in Bengali where I learned reference to Ayalya. You can read more about Ayalya in the book, The Ramayana: A Shortened Modern Prose Version of the Indian Epic by R. K. Narayan. Some of the excerpt from this book:
Brahma once created, out of the ingredients of absolute beauty, a woman, and she was called Ahalya (which in the Sanskrit language means nonimperfection).
God Indra, being the highest god among the gods, was attracted by her beauty and was convinced that he alone was worthy of claiming her hand. Brahma, noticing the conceit and presumptuousness of
Indra, ignored him, sought out Sage Gautama, and left him in charge of the girl. She grew up in his custody, and when the time came the sage took her back to Brahma and handed her over to him. Brahma appreciated Gautama's purity of mind and heart (never once had any carnal thought crossed his mind), and said, "Marry her, she is fit to be your wife, or rather you alone deserve to be her husband."
Accordingly, she was married, blessed by Brahma and other gods. Having spent her
childhood with Gautama, Ahalya knew his needs and so proved a perfect
wife, and they lived happily.
Indra, however, never got over his infatuation for Ahalya, and often came in different guises near to Gautama’s ashram, waiting for every chance to gaze and feast on Ahalya's form and figure; he also watched the habits of the sage and noticed that the sage left his ashram at the dawn of each day
and was away for a couple of hours at 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. One day, hardly able to wait for the sage to leave at his usual hour, Indra assumed the voice of a rooster, and woke up the sage, who, thinking that the morning had come, left for the river. Now Indra assumed the sage’s form, entered the hut, and made love to Ahalya.
She surrendered herself, but at some stage realized that the man enjoying her was an imposter; but she could do nothing about it. Gautama came back at this moment, having intuitively felt that something was wrong, and surprised the couple in bed. Ahalya stood aside filled with shame and remorse; Indra assumed the form of a cat (the most facile animal form for sneaking in or out) and tried to slip away. The sage looked from the cat to the woman and was not to be deceived. He arrested the cat where he was with these words:
"Cat, I know you; your obsession with the female is your undoing. May your body be covered with a thousand female marks, so that in all the worlds, people may understand what really goes on in your mind all the time." Hardly had these words left his lips when every inch of Indra’s body
displayed the female organ. There could be no greater shame for the proud and self-preening Indra.
After Indra slunk away, back to his world, Gautama looked at his wife and said, “You have sinned with your body. May that body harden into a shapeless piece of granite, just where you are. . . .” Now in desperation Ahalya implored, “A grave mistake has been committed. It is in the nature of noble souls to forgive the errors of lesser beings. Please . . . I am already feeling a weight creeping up my feet. Do something . . . please help me. . .."
Now the sage felt sorry for her and said, "Your redemption will come when the son of Dasaratha, Rama, passes this way at some future date. . . ."
“When? Where?” she essayed to question, desperately, but before the words could leave her lips she had become a piece of stone.
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 in a body to Brahma and requested him to intercede with Gautama. By this time, the sage’s resentment had vanished. And he said in response to Brahma’s appeal, "May the thousand additions to Indra’s features become eyes." Indra thereafter came to be known as the “thousand eyed god."
Viswamithra concluded the story and addressed Rama. "O great one, you
are born to restore righteousness and virtue to mankind and eliminate all
evil. At our yagna, I saw the power of your arms, and now I see the
greatness of the touch of your feet."
Rama said to Ahalya, "May you seek and join your revered husband, and
live in his service again. Let not your heart be burdened with what is past
and gone."
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