When Ahalya Was Deceived By Indra Why Was She Cursed

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Many aspects of the Ramayan have been narrated in different ways.
And a few years ago, somebody had sent me a video. Apparently, it’s there on YouTube. The Halyas story has been rendered in a different way by some modern filmmaker or whatever.
But the basic storyline is that there is this attractive looking woman and whoever gets attracted to her, she’s married to someone else, but whoever gets attracted to her, that person gets turned into a stone because it is that person’s attraction. It is that person’s wrong desire, which is the problem. So the underlying subtext is that actually Halya was a victim and she was punished although she was a victim.
But actually the one who should be punished is the opposite. So let’s look at basically the story. Halya is a chaste wife of a great sage and she is a yogini.
Her husband is a yogi and she is a yogini and while they are living together in the forest, at that time, her husband goes for a bath and when he is gone, suddenly he returns and he wants to be with her. So she’s a little surprised. But what has actually happened is that it is Indra who has impersonated as her husband and has come because she’s so attractive and he wants to be with her and then Indra unites with her and then while he is leaving, at that time her husband comes back and then he sees what has happened.
He gets enraged and he curses both Indra and Halya and Indra is cursed to, Indra is said to have, Indra is a very powerful being. So he is cursed to become deformed. Now he is deformed in a particular way that his whole body becomes covered with a thousand reproductive organs.
It is a female reproductive organs. You are so captivated by that, let that fill your body. So Indra becomes mortified, embarrassed and he says, please forgive me, please forgive me and finally his changes to his changes to thousand eyes.
So Sahastrayoni that’s the word that is used sometimes. It’s sometimes used for the Supreme Lord and is also used for the it’s used for the Virat Rupa. Sometimes it’s used also for Indra and then he turns towards Halya and he curses Halya.
He says, you become a stone. Now Halya falls at his feet and begs forgiveness but still he curses her. So this seems to be, there are several aspects over here.
Why does he get cursed like this? it is because of Indra’s cunningness that he is able to exploit Halya. So Indra is cursed and Halya is also cursed. The common storyline is that Halya is a victim.
One is that there was one man’s lust and another man’s anger and in between she gets victimized. Well, yeah, it seems like that but the story is told in various places. In the Ramayana itself there is a clear mention of some significant detail that is overlooked and then beyond that there are details which are told in other Puranas also.
So what is one very significant detail? Was Halya a victim? Not exactly. Halya was, it is a quick conclusion, it is an easy conclusion to come to but we can’t be so fast. Halya was also Yogini and she recognized it as Indra who had impersonated as her husband and yet when she saw him coming she felt gratified, delighted that the king of the gods had gone so far, gone through such lengths to be with her and then she succumbed to that that thrill that she got over there.
So it was, now we could say Indra was decidedly devious. He was wicked and because he made a whole cunning plan to do something terrible but in contrast Halya had a moment of weakness. So she didn’t go about scheming the way Indra did but she also had a moment of weakness.
It was not that she was completely faultless or completely ignorant. She knew what was happening but somehow she succumbed at that time.