My Gita

by Devdutt Pattanaik

The earliest word for God in the Rig Veda is ‘ka’, which is the first alphabet in Sanskrit, from which come all the interrogative pronouns such as what, when, where, why, how. Thus, divinity had something to do with enquiry. The kavi, or poet, enquired about ka. He later came to be known as the rishi, the observer.

Though formless, the God of Abrahamic mythology is addressed, even visualized, in masculine terms. The God of Hindu mythology is visualized as sometimes male, sometimes female, sometimes both and sometimes neither. Thus, Krishna refers, in Chapter 7, Verse 6, to the world of matter and mind as his two wombs (yoni), while also speaking of how he places his seed in the womb of Brahma, in Chapter 14, Verse 3. Krishna also describes himself in feminine terms. In Chapter 10, he identifies himself as the Ganga River and the wish-fulfilling cow Kamadhenu. Naturally, in Maharashtra, the poet-saints had no problem referring to the local form of Krishna, Vitthal, as Vittha-ai or Mother Vitthal.