retrospect on Onam and maveli..

Let us see how we can relate the Legend of Mahabali being vanquished and sent to nether worlds by Vamana and the story of the just and happy rule of Mahabali in Kerala..
especially since Kerala is supposed to have been created by Parasurama much after the Vamana incarnation..

Our Puranas and Itihasas are huge bundles of facts, fictions, myths and legends..
But there is an inbuilt message that the good prevails over the evil ultimately..
We have to love our legends more for that message and not for the fluff..

There is an apoarent chronological inconsistency..

But this is not the only one such situation in our legends..

There are too many

Some people just feel explanation of such events and narrations by some sort of convoluted logic is the be all and end all of Hinduism..
It is not so..

Some apologists would say the Avatars replicate again and again in each succeeding chathuryuga or a string of four yugas and so the Vamana incident of a later cycle could have occurred after the Parasurama episode in Kerala..

But such arguments are facetious..

of course, a distant possibility.. people who settled in Kerala after Parasurama created that land by throw of an axe from Gokarna to Kanyakumari or vice versa also brought the legend of Mahabali with them..
That again is just a guess..

It seems the Maaveli legend of Kerala is a local myth confined to Kerala alone ..

But that myth is an emotion, a dream, a hope for every Keralite..
The man of Kerala builds up and lives on Nostalgia on such a benevolent rule of prosperity and fair-play.. by Maveli of yonder years..
Perhaps there was a ruler in Kerala living up to that standards sometime in the history..
And as is usual with all dynasties or systems of administrations, the citadel of such welfare state was once shattered by some strife and Maveli just had to abdicate and flee..

The imaginative minds of the populace connected this story with the Puranic episode of Mahabali being vanquished by Vishnu as Vamana..

The two myths just gelled together..

No Puranam worth its name says that the Yajna conducted by Mahabali happened in Kerala..

And the legend of Onam in Kerala is a local legend which is not found in any Puranam or Itihasam..

So we need not try to put test in the light of puranams the facts and chronology of these two incidents which got superimposed..

Onam is our dream.. for us Keralites, Maaveli or Mahabali is that just and fair ruler of men whom we wanted to have all the time.. irrespective of systems, isms and ideologies..

Permit us to live our fond dreams,, at least for ten days..

No questions asked..
..

I just attempted to trace the historical possibilities..
I have not tried to give nor support any theories..
There is a local legend about a great ruler of Kerala..

The ballad sung by all from Layman to the learned..
for millenniums ago till this onam..
and the same refrains might reverberate our cultural horizons for even centuries to come..

മാവേലി നാടു വാണീടുംകാലം മാനുഷരെല്ലാരും ഒന്നുപോലെ ( when Maveli ruled this land, all human beings were equal)
Sometimes, just to forget everything mundane and often distressing, we have to live in some utopia.. some imaginary ideal environs at least for a very small slice of time..
The festivals and festivities have taken shape from this acute awareness..
Any festival among any set of people however varied they are in their living conditions, is celebrated just to throw to winds all tension and enjoy life..
The frills and theories all follow.. just as appendages...

May this Onam bring us all happiness.. and hope.. and renewed determination to raise from setbacks to Greatness once again..
असतो मा सद्गमय
तमसो मा ज्योतिर्गमय
मृत्योर्मा अमृतं गमय