43 - Dancing With The Gods
Summary
TLDRIn this episode of 'Stories from India,' host Narad Muni, a mythological character with eternal life, narrates the tale of Shiva's dance, the Tandava. The story unfolds with dark rishis causing mischief, leading villagers to pray for Shiva's intervention. Shiva, disguised as a beggar, outwits the rishis and their demon creation, Aasas, through his dance. The episode concludes with the villagers building a temple for Shiva and the significance of his dance in various scientific contexts, including astrophysics.
Takeaways
- 🎙️ The podcast 'Stories from India' is hosted by Narad Muni, a mythological character with the gift of eternal life and knowledge.
- 💃 The episode discusses the Tandava, a dance performed by Shiva, the destroyer in the Holy Trinity, which is said to cause earthquakes.
- 🌲 The story begins in a dark forest where dark rishis, similar to the Sith or dark Jedi, are plotting evil deeds.
- 🍰 One dark rishi is tempted by the local bakery's cakes, while another wants to hide villagers' belongings, and the third wants to rob a bank.
- 🙏 The villagers, believing in dark magic, pray to Shiva for help, and he appears to them, questioning the necessity of his intervention.
- 💰 Shiva agrees to help but asks for an additional cost, promising not to destroy the dark rishis but to bring them to the light.
- 🤵 Shiva disguises himself as a handsome beggar and impresses the dark rishis' wives, leading them to consider begging as a noble profession.
- 🐍 The dark rishis, disturbed by the stranger's influence, send dangerous animals like snakes, a lion, and an elephant to scare him off, but Shiva tames them all.
- 💃 In response to the dark rishis' final attempt to create a demon of ignorance and arrogance, Shiva performs the Tandava, symbolizing the crushing of these negative traits.
- 🏛 The villagers build a temple in honor of Shiva, featuring an idol of Nataraja, a form of Shiva performing the Tandava dance.
- 🌌 The episode ends with a teaser for the next mini-episode, featuring a character from the Mahabharat, the son of Bhima known for his bald head shaped like a pot.
Q & A
What is the main theme of the podcast episode?
-The main theme of the podcast episode is the dance called 'Tandava,' performed by Shiva, the destroyer in the Holy Trinity.
Who is the host of the podcast?
-The host of the podcast is Narad Muni, a mythological character with the gift of eternal life and knowledge of the past, present, and future.
What are the two versions of the Tandava dance mentioned in the script?
-The two versions of the Tandava dance are the happy one and the sad one, both resulting in earthquakes.
Who are the antagonists in the story?
-The antagonists in the story are the dark rishis, who are like Sith or dark Jedi, using the dark side of the force to terrorize the villagers.
How does Shiva initially respond to the villagers' prayers?
-Shiva initially appears before the villagers and questions if their problems are serious enough to warrant his intervention, but eventually agrees to bring the dark rishis to the light instead of destroying them.
How does Shiva disguise himself to interact with the dark rishis?
-Shiva disguises himself as a handsome beggar to interact with the dark rishis and their wives.
What strategies do the dark rishis use to try and get rid of the disguised Shiva?
-The dark rishis try to get rid of the disguised Shiva by sending dangerous creatures like snakes, a lion, and an elephant, but Shiva effortlessly handles them and even turns them into useful items.
What is the ultimate plan of the dark rishis to defeat Shiva?
-The ultimate plan of the dark rishis is to create a demon named Aasar, who personifies ignorance, arrogance, and ego, to defeat Shiva.
How does Shiva defeat the demon Aasar?
-Shiva defeats the demon Aasar by dancing and casually hopping on him, binding the demon to the ground and symbolically crushing ignorance and arrogance.
What is the significance of the Nataraja statue mentioned in the script?
-The Nataraja statue, depicting Shiva in a dancing pose, is significant as it represents the dance of creation and destruction. It has been widely recognized, including its presence at the Russian space station and the Large Hadron Collider at CERN in Geneva.
Outlines
🎶 Introduction to Stories from India Podcast 🎶
The script opens with the host, Narad Muni, introducing the 'Stories from India' podcast, which explores Indian myths, legends, and folk tales. As a character with eternal life and omniscience, Narad is also a traveling musician and storyteller. The episode's focus is on a unique dance called the Tandav, performed by Shiva, the destroyer in the Holy Trinity. The dance, associated with earthquakes, is not a common spectacle but has two versions: a happy and a sad one. The episode begins with a story set in a dark forest where dark rishis, akin to Sith or dark Jedi, are plotting evil deeds. The villagers, unable to prove the rishis' misdeeds, pray to Shiva for help, leading to his immediate appearance and a promise to bring the dark rishis to the light instead of destroying them.
🤔 Shiva's Disguise and the Dark Rishis' Dilemma 🤔
In a clever disguise as a beggar, Shiva interacts with the dark rishis' wives, impressing them with his begging skills and causing them to consider a change in profession for their husbands. The rishis, disturbed by this influence, decide to take action against the stranger. They attempt to scare him away with various dangerous creatures like snakes, a lion, and an elephant, but Shiva effortlessly handles each threat, turning them into gifts or decorations. These encounters reveal Shiva's divine nature to the rishis, who realize they are no match for him.
💃 The Tandav Dance and the Dark Rishis' Redemption 💃
Frustrated by their failed attempts to intimidate Shiva, the dark rishis unite to create a demon named Aasar, embodying ignorance, arrogance, and ego. However, Shiva counters this by performing the Tandav dance, a powerful act symbolizing the crushing of negative traits. The dance's significance is such that it is depicted in various forms of art and science, including a statue at the Large Hadron Collider in Geneva and a comparison to high-energy astrophysics. The story concludes with the dark rishis renouncing their evil ways and the villagers completing a temple in Shiva's honor. The episode ends with a tease of the next character from the Mahabharat, the bald-headed pot-shaped son of Bhima.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Narad Muni
💡Tandava
💡Shiva
💡Dark Rishis
💡Aasas
💡Podcast
💡Nataraja
💡LHC
💡Ego
💡Purana
💡Feedback
Highlights
Introduction to the podcast 'Stories from India' which focuses on myths, legends, and folk tales.
Host Narad Muni, a mythological character with the gift of eternal life and knowledge, presents the show.
The unique dance form 'Tandav' is discussed, known to be performed only by Shiva, the destroyer.
Two versions of Tandav exist: a happy and a sad one, both causing earthquakes.
A dark forest setting introduces a group of dark rishis with powerful, dark magic.
Dark rishis' evil plans include teleporting food, hiding villagers' items, and robbing a bank.
Villagers pray to Shiva for help against the dark rishis' terrorizing actions.
Shiva agrees to confront the dark rishis but decides to bring them to the light instead of destroying them.
Shiva disguises himself as a beggar to interact with the dark rishis and their wives.
The dark rishis' wives are influenced by Shiva's beggar disguise, considering begging as a noble profession.
Dark rishis plot against the stranger (Shiva) by sending dangerous animals and a demon.
Shiva effortlessly handles the dark rishis' attempts to harm him, turning their attacks into gifts.
The creation of the demon 'Aasas' by the dark rishis to embody ignorance, arrogance, and ego.
Shiva's Tandav dance subdues the demon Aasas, symbolizing the triumph over negative traits.
The dark rishis realize Shiva's identity and promise to reform, pledging to use their powers for good.
The villagers build a temple in honor of Shiva's dance, with the idol depicting Nataraja.
Nataraja's image is widespread, including visits to the Russian space station and a statue at CERN's LHC.
A physicist from CERN compares Shiva's Tandav to high-energy astrophysics, drawing a scientific parallel.
Invitation for listeners to comment, review, and subscribe for new episodes, with acknowledgment of feedback.
Music credit to Purple Planet, providing the podcast's soundtrack.
A teaser for the next mini-episode featuring a character from the Mahabharat, the son of Bhima.
Transcripts
[Music]
[Applause]
[Music]
[Applause]
hello and welcome to stories from India
a podcast where we talk about myths
Legends and folk tales from
India I'm your host narad money and I'm
a mythological character myself I have
the gift of eternal life and knowledge
of the past the present and the
future by profession I'm a traveling
musician and a
Storyteller so the way I'm doing my job
is by
podcast I've had a listener specifically
request today's story so this week we
are going to talk about
dancing and no I'm not accidentally
reading a script from the wrong
podcast the dance we are talking about
is an earth chattering one quite
literally it's called the
tand but this isn't a dance that anyone
can perform so don't expect to see it on
Dancing With the Stars or Strictly Come
Dancing anytime soon the only one who
can perform it is Shiva the destroyer in
the Holy Trinity
there are two versions of this dance
there's the happy one and the sad
one there isn't much of a distinction to
be made between the two because both of
them result in
earthquakes Our Story begins in a dark
Forest where a few dark rishes met for a
dark
purpose now if you have seen Star Wars
or seen or red Harry Potter you can
easily imagine what dark Ries
are they are like the Sith or the dark
Jedi or like
tetas they use the dark side of the
force and their magic is generally
pretty powerful
magic they can do things that ordinary
Ries
can't in this particular
case that included
terrorizing the villagers near the
forest three of the dark rishes were
plotting their next move chatting about
what morally objectionable action to try
next dark Rishi one wanted to teleport
food from the local
bakery because they bake the most
delicious cakes and he had a sweet
tooth dark rishy too wanted to hide
people's
stuff you know car keys TV
remotes dark rishy 3 wanted to rob the
bank but that wasn't evil enough so he
was voted down
easily the villagers had absolutely no
proof that their problems were caused by
the dark
Ries nevertheless they prayed to the
gods to rescue them from these obviously
evil
fishes they made the right call in
praying to Shiva the
Destroyer Shiva appeared before them
right
away a very different situation from the
individual people we have met before on
this podcast who had to wait hundreds
and thousands of years for an
audience there is power in numbers after
all Shiva appeared before them I don't
know guys he said to the
villagers this is iffy you want me to
destroy the dark rishes just because you
can't find your TV remotes and your car
keys have you even looked under the
couch but the villagers had and they
were convinced that this was dark magic
at
work fine said Shiva but it's going to
cost you extra and I won't destroy the
dark Ries I'll just bring them to the
light I know there's still some good in
them that was acceptable to the
villagers who immediately began
preparations for a temple on that
spot meanwhile Shiva disguised himself
as a handsome
beggar note that begging wasn't nearly
as bad a profession then as it is now
in fact there were highly sought after
coaches and trainers who would teach you
the right posture the right begging Bowl
to pick and to train your voice and
tailor your begging techniques to the
audience Shiva needed none of the
instructions of
course being part of the Holy Trinity
automatically gave him Supreme
knowledge in his disguise Shiva walked
around around the forest
casually accidentally stumbling upon
each of the dark rishy
Huts conveniently at a time when the
dark Ries were away cooking up new
Mischief Shiva made quite the impression
on the dark rishi's
wives even in just the couple of minutes
of their
interaction of him holding out his bowl
and a dark rishy wife pouring rice in it
so much so that when their respective
husbands got home that
evening the wives began nagging them to
try and switch to the begging
profession it's Noble work said one
wife it's easy work said
another and we won't have to eat cakes
all the time said the
third this went on for a while with a
stranger visiting the wives daily for
food this is
unacceptable said a dark Rishi later
when the three Ries got together to
discuss their
problems this beggar stranger who's been
visiting us is a bad
influence pretty soon our wives will
have independent
thoughts something we have long work to
suppress we must
act the other two
agreed dark rishy 1 said it's my turn to
act dark rishy 3 got to put sand in the
villager's dinner last night so I'm up
next at the
bat he thought for a moment and then
laughed an evil
laugh oh yes he said black mamba from
Africa taipans from
Australia and some local cobras and some
rattlesnakes should do the
trick he waved his wand and magically an
angry set of snakes appeared inside a
bag by Magic he sent the bag of hissing
and spitting snakes towards the part of
the forest that the stranger was
in even the other two dark rishes looked
at each other
nervously and not just because of the
ecological effects of introducing using
an invasive non-native
Predator they were worried their
colleague had gone over the
edge next morning dark Rishi one decided
to go see the results of his
handiwork as he approached The Stranger
On The
Ground he was surprised when the
stranger woke up with a smile and good
morning
him oh hey hi said the Rishi
awkwardly I am your new
neighbor The Stranger
replied then you must be the one who
left those nice belts and necklaces for
me last night I loved your gifts thank
you with horror the dark Rishi realized
the stranger's belt was
wiggling it was the Black
Mamba the cobras and the rattlesnakes
were around the stranger's
neck this was too much for dark Rishi W
he ran away in
Fright dark Rishi too decided to try
next this time he sent a ferocious
lion but the next morning The Stranger
thanked him for the comfortable lion
hide
blanket though he had had to kill the
lion and skin it and make the blanket
himself
self dark rishy 3 tried an angry
elephant but the stranger merely ended
up with nice Ivory decorations for his
hat made him look like a viking in
everything frustrated and itching for
Revenge the dark Ries tried to do
something
different they would work
together they created something
a demon who personified ignorance and
arrogance and the
ego because the way to defeat a strong
opponent is obviously to make them
ignorant arrogant and
overconfident that was not going to work
on
Shiva the demon who was called
aasar walked towards the handsome
beggar and then the beggar suddenly
wanted to
dance he snapped his fingers and they
were disco lights
everywhere as Shiva started dancing in
one move he casually hopped on
aasar that bound the demon to the
ground the reasoning of course is that
ignorance and arrogance must be crushed
underfoot to keep them in check
otherwise they have have the potential
to crush
you when they saw the dancing Shiva the
dark Rish realized who he
was given that Shiva has the title of
the Destroyer it's easy to see why the
Ries were eager to not displease him
they swore off any mischief and promised
to use their power for
good the villagers finished making the
temple and the idol in it was obviously
going to be that of
nutraj a version of Shiva doing the
dance this image is quite
widespread it has visited the Russian
space station
May there is also a statue of the nutraj
at the LHC the large hedron collider
which is the biggest machine and largest
science experiment on Earth located at
CN in
Geneva a physicist fridge of cpra has
famously compared shiva's dance the tand
with high energy
astrophysics given my complete and
eternal knowledge of everything I can
say he's mostly
right do check the links in the show
notes for more links to images of the
netr that's all for now if if you have
comments or suggestions please leave a
comment or a review on the site SFI
podcast.com or tweet @ SFI podcast you
can also find me on Instagram and
Facebook be sure to subscribe to the
show to get notified automatically of
new episodes thanks to all you listeners
for your continued support and your
feedback the music is from purple
planet.com that's
purple-planet.com in the next Mini
episode we'll meet a character from The
Mahabharat he's the son of beem the
strongest of the panda Brothers his name
literally means bald
pot because his head was shaped like a
pot and it was completely
hairless way to get creative there I'll
see you
[Music]
later
oh
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