Pandora and Sandhya by Satya Chaitanya - Reader View

4/23/2021 Pandora and Sandhya by Satya Chaitanya :: Reader View
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Pandora and Sandhya by Satya

Chaitanya
23-30 minutes
Pandora is the first woman created according to ancient

Greek myths and Sandhya, the first woman born according
to ancient Indian myths. While there are a few similarities
between the two, the contrasts between them are great. By
comparing the stories of the first woman in these two
cultures, we can arrive at how the two cultures perceived
women – perceptions that influenced Indian and western
attitudes towards women for millennia and still continue to
influence to some extent. True, one example from each
culture is not enough for such a study, but then when it
comes to the first woman, we cannot have many examples
either.
Let’s begin with Pandora. There are variations in the story

Greece tells us about her, as is true of all Greek stories,
but according to Hesiod, one of the earliest Greek poets
and Homer’s near contemporary, in whose work Theogony
she first appears, Pandora’s story begins when the gods
and human beings decide to have a sacrificial feast
together at Mekone. Human beings until then were only
male – anthropoi – there were no women, the first one was
yet to be born, yet to be created. And these human beings
lived in perfect harmony among themselves, perfect peace
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and perfect concord with gods and nature. Life was a

symphony and man did not have to work – the earth
yielded whatever he needed and more, without sweat and
toil. There existed no old age, no disease, no suffering, no
pain, and nothing unpleasant ever happened – as in the
satya yuga of India!
Enter Prometheus, the titan who had immense love for

men and wanted to do what is best for them. And when he
heard about the feast, he slew an ox, as was common in
ancient Greece, and divided the ox into two parts – one
consisting of the most edible parts of the animal like its
meat, muscles and fat and the other, just the bones.
Prometheus is known for his cunning – he wrapped up the
good parts and covered it with the innards of the ox,
making it unappealing; and the bones he wrapped up and
covered with fat, making it look appetizing. He then offered
the choice to Zeus – the god could choose for the gods
whichever part he preferred. Zeus knew the cunning of
Prometheus – generally considered a great asset by the
ancient Greeks as by folk cultures all over the world. In
spite of knowing the trap, he chose the wrapped up bones
and as a punishment for the people for whose sake the
titan wanted to cheat the gods, pronounced a curse on
them: from then on, the earth would no more yield food on
its own and men would have to sweat and toil to produce it.
And even that yield would depend on the seasons, would
be unpredictable and so on and so forth. He also decreed
that in future, when a sacrifice is offered, gods would take
the bones of the animal burnt at the altar – the smells
carried upward by the smoke – and all the meat men can
have for themselves. Still not content with what he had

done, his fury at the cheating still not appeased, Zeus took
away fire from the earth – men would no more be able to
cook food, but would now have to eat it raw.
Titan Prometheus, with his cunning and his love for man,
had an idea about this too. He wouldn’t allow Zeus to
punish man so cruelly for what was essentially his mistake.
So what he did was to hide a spark of fire in a reed and
bring it to the earth. For which blessing, humanity called
him their savior, the fire-bringer. They could now eat
cooked food, work with metals, bake earthenware, do all
kinds of things with fire and thus have civilization.
That was again an act that would not go unpunished by

Zeus – Prometheus was given, as a punishment for his
transgression of trying to benefit man once again, the most
awful punishment imaginable perhaps, a brutal torment
that would have no end and would go on and on. He would
be chained to a rock where a vulture would forever feed on
his liver – the vulture would peck and pull out pieces of his
liver and feed on it; and the liver would grow back
overnight so that the vulture can feed on the immortal
titan’s liver the next day again.
That was the punishment for Prometheus. But men whom

he loved so much, for whose sake he did all this, wouldn’t
be spared either. Their punishment would be worse than
the earlier two: a new being would be sent into their midst,
a new being called woman. And what would be woman’s
job? To separate man from joy and happiness forever, to
destroy his peace and serenity, to create discord among
men, to drive them crazy – she would be the source of all

their misery and yet they wouldn’t be able to live without
her, for she promised them bliss, one look at her would fill
them with intense pleasure; and also, she would be the
mother of their children. An amazing creature that made
them go dizzy, she would enter their homes, cunning,
insidious, manipulative, treacherous, take over their hearts
and make sure there was no peace there. She would
create discord among them; would sow the seeds of
jealousy, rivalry, disputes, conflict, dissonance, clashes,
quarrels, discontent and greed. Her way would be
seductive submissiveness. They wouldn’t be able to do
without her, they would so pang for her that separation
from her even for a moment would be hell for them. And
with her in their homes and hearts – from where she would
rule over them, dictate to them what to do and what not to
do, play with them as though they were mere puppets
make them dance to her least wish and drive them insane,
life would be hell again.
Zeus was not finished yet, so furious was he, he ordered

the gods to bestow gifts upon her – all kinds of gifts: that is
what Pandora means, pan meaning all, and dora meaning
gift. These gifts were meant to punish man, turn the world
evil, fill it with misery and agony and distance man forever
from the gods and all that made life worth living. She would
be beautiful beyond words, and for that reason men would
crave her, and suffer endlessly for it. Man would no more
be the simple man, but would be split into male and
female, forever restless, forever seeking, forever crazy,
forever driven to the unattainable, forever searching for the

paradise lost.
The last gift given to Pandora as ordered by Zeus was

from Hermes, the heavenly thief. He gave her his thieving
nature, the desire to exploit others, to steal what belongs to
others, to live like a parasite without producing any food on
her own unlike men who sweated in the fields in the sun
and the rain, and in heat and cold, to plough the earth and
sow seeds to produce yield from the earth, while she
stayed home.
Pandora brings with her all these “gifts” in a jar. Down on

the earth she opens the lid of the jar and all the gifts given
her by the gods to punish man escape and spread all over
the world – all except hope, which sustains man in the
middle of all the misery that life had become.
The vengeance of Zeus is complete now.
This then is the story of Pandora, the first woman created

according to Greek mythology.
~*~
Let us now take a look at the story of Sandhya, the first

woman born of the Creator, Brahma according to Indian
myths. As in the case of the Greek myth of Pandora, there
are several versions of Sandhya’s story – in fact much
more so – but for our discussion we shall follow the
detailed Kalika Purana narration. The story is told in the
opening chapters of the purana.
Brahma, the Creator [different from Brahman the Ultimate

Reality, pure existence-consciousness-bliss], first created
the Prajapatis such as Daksha and then the ten mind-born
sons such as Marichi, Angira etc. Following the birth of the
mind-born sons, manasa-putras, as Brahma sat in deep
meditation, from his mind was born a woman of amazing
beauty named Sandhya, Twilight. She was endowed with
every desirable quality, says the Kailka Purana: sampurna-
gu?a-salini. There was no equal to her in the world of gods
or anywhere else, and she was without equal in the past,
present or future. Her hair was enticing blue-black and she
had large blue eyes that reminded you of blue lotuses.
Those eyes were timid like those of a doe, moving
constantly, and her eyebrows reached out towards her
ears. Her nose resembled a sesame flower and was so
incredibly beautiful that it made one feel as though it was
the beauty of her forehead melting and flowing down in
such a wonderful shape. Her face reminded you of a
golden lotus; and her rich, lush red lower lip, the ripe bimba
gourd. Her two full breasts, thrusting upward as though
they were trying to reach her lovely chin [pinottungau,
chibuka? yatu? udyatau iva], her thin waist, broad hips,
heavy thighs, lovely feet, all made her temptingly,
irresistibly alluring.
But of course, Kama, the god of desire and love, was yet to
be born. So while Brahma, the prajapatis and the
manasaputras were all curious to know who she was and
what her function in the process of creation would be, none
of them lusted for her – at least not for now.
And then, all of a sudden, without any warning, as they sat

musing about Sandhya, there emerged from the mind of
the Creator yet another being of great beauty – this time a
male, of the complexion of gold dust, with a wide chest,
long dark-blue hair, dancing eyes, young, tall, chest as
wide as a door plank, shoulders like those of a rogue
elephant. The Kalika Purana here pauses to give us a
description of the perfection of male beauty and unless we
are familiar with Indian mythology, we expect him to be the
match for Sandhya – the perfect male and the perfect
female.
As the prajapatis and the mind-born sons of Brahma look

on, their curiosity awakened, the new being, from whom
wafts a heady fragrance, looks at Brahma, bows to him
and asks him what his function is, what he should do –
remember the creation of the universe has just begun and
is still in the initial stages. He requests Brahma to assign to
him any work befitting him. The Creator does not say
anything for a while – he is himself taken aback by the
majesty of the awesome things that are happening. Then,
mastering himself, overcoming the awe he is feeling, he
speaks to this male being, giving him a bow and five flower
arrows, telling him to continue the process of creation with
the help of his superb body and the five arrows, bewitching
men and women. Brahma assures him that neither the
gods, nor the gandharvas or kinnaras, nor the yakshas,
nagas, rakshasas, pishachas, asuras, daityas, vidyadharas
or human beings will be able to resist him. Nor will birds,
beasts, worms, fish, insects or anything else that breathes.
Well, he adds by way of concluding, why to say more,

neither I, nor Vishnu or Shiva will be beyond your capacity
to influence. None shall be impervious to you! Sneak into
the hearts of all, unseen and unknown to them, become
the cause of their happiness and continue the eternal
process of creation.
Brahma then blesses him: May the hearts of living beings

always be the target of your arrows! May you be the giver
of joy and delight to all that breathe!
This mind-born son of the Creator is given the name

Manmatha, for his capacity to churn the minds of people,
and Kama, because he is the most charming and beautiful
of all. He is also given a couple of other names for similar
reasons – Madana, Kandarpa, etc. He is again blessed: his
flower arrows will be more powerful than the weapons of
Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva. He is given omnipresence –
the entire universe will be his abode, there will be no place
where he has no entry and all will be subject to him – all,
including plants, bushes and grass, right up to
Brahmaloka, and no one anywhere shall be equal to him.
He is told that the daughter of Daksha, Rati, shall be his
wife.
It is now that the story takes a turn. Kama muses over all
the powers and blessings he has received, picks up his
bow Unmadana shaped like the eyebrow of a beautiful
woman and his five flower arrows and decides something
very daring: He would test his powers on Brahma himself
along with the others present there. He stretches the bow
fully until it forms almost a circle and places the arrows on
it. A sweet, fragrant wind starts bowing and, as he lets go

and the flowers hit Brahma, the prajapatis and the ten
mind-born sons of brahma, every one of them becomes
erotically enchanted. Unable to take their eyes away from
Sandhya, they keep looking at her and as they do so,
powerful desire for her arises in their minds and fills their
bodies with sexual craving – they all lust for her deeply, the
lust engendering sexual reactions in their bodies and
making them perspire.
Kama doesn’t spare Sandhya either – she too is hit by his

arrows. And as Brahma looks at her his mind and body
filled with lust for her, from her body are born the forty-nine
sentiments [bhavas] as well as haughty indifference,
tempting talk, cajolery, coquettish gestures and other
havas. Also born of her are the sixty-four arts.
Sandhya too, pierced by the arrows of kama, starts

exhibiting feminine behaviours under sexual desire –
sidelong glances, smiles, giggles, shyness,
embarrassment, light tremor of the body, restive eyes, and
so on. With those gestures, Sandhya’s desirability
multiples and she becomes enticing beyond words. In the
words of the Kalika Purana, she becomes irresistibly
charming like a heavenly river filled with fine, golden
ripples.
As Brahma looks at Sandhya, herself a victim of Kama and

filled with sexual longing, expressing that longing in her
looks, gestures, stance and glances, expressing it through
her entire body, her sexually awake body is covered by
perspiration.
Seeing his effect on Brahma, the prajapatis and the

manasaputras as well as on Sandhya, Kama concludes:
Yes, I am capable of performing the job the Creator has
allotted to me.
It is at this moment that Shiva appears in the skies above

them and looking at them laughs at them ridiculing them.
“Brahma,” he asks, “how come you get sexually excited
seeing your own daughter? Certainly very inappropriate for
someone who follows the Vedic way! One should treat
one’s daughter-in-law exactly as one treats one’s mother;
and one should treat one’s daughter exactly as he treats
his daughter-in-law – this is the Vedic way of life,
expressed in words that came out of your own mouth. How
is it that just because of Kama you have forgotten all that?
What holds the world up together is firmness of the mind –
and you have lost that firmness because of something as
insignificant as Kama. And how have the great ascetics
who spend all their time in meditation fallen and started
lusting for a woman? How has some silly guy like Kama,
who has just got his work allotted to him by you, who has
no sense of the right time and the right place, made you
victims of his arrow? Shame! Shame on you all!”
Hearing these words of Shiva, Brahma becomes doubly

ashamed and his body becomes covered with perspiration
again, this time out of embarrassment. He masters himself
and holds himself back, though a moment ago, filled with
lust, he was about to grab Sandhya in his arms.
From Bramha’s perspiration, says the Kalika Purana, are

born the pitarah/pitrs – the manes. And from the
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perspiration of Daksha, who has a hard time controlling his

sexual arousal, is born Rati, the goddess of sexual love
and beauty, the slim wasted, slender, irresistible goddess
of the golden hue, whom he gives to Kama as his wife.
To end the story, Brahma becomes infuriated with Kama

for making him lust for his own daughter and curses him
that he would be burned to ashes by Shiva. Later, when
Kama explains he was just testing the powers Brahma had
said he has, and begs forgiveness, the Creator forgives
him and tells him that he will regain his body when Shiva
takes a wife.
~*~
As far as the Kalika Purana is concerned, the story of

Sandhya ends here. However, the Shiva Purana which
tells exactly the same story of Sandhya, even using
identical vocabulary, imageries and metaphors in its Rudra
Samhita section, continues her story from here. The
Purana tells us that after Shiva and Brahma leave the
place, Sandhya muses over the incidents that have
happened. Her own father was tempted by her, her
brothers – the prajapatis and the mind-born sons of
Brahma – too were tempted by her, shot by the arrows of
Kama. Not only that, because of the arrows he had shot at
her, she too had become erotically excited and had started
behaving in sexually suggestive ways. True, Kama has
reaped the fruits of his actions in the form of the curse he
received from Brahma, but she too had committed the
grave sin of lusting for her own father and her brothers.
She decides to perform the expiatory rites prescribed by
the Vedas for such a sin – ending one’s body by entering a

sacrificial fire. She decides to do that, but before that she
would do one thing for the good of the world. She had felt
sexual feelings from the very moment of her birth – she
was just born when all these things happened. Hence she
would perform extreme penance so that no new born will
have sexual feelings. Eroticism, sexuality, should come to
all only on maturity. After achieving that goal, she would
give up this body of hers that had tempted her father and
brothers and in which she had felt sexual arousal for her
father and brothers.
She realizes she is inspired to meditate and purify herself

by the sight of Shiva that she had had as he appeared
before them all.
With these noble thoughts, Sandhya goes to the foot of the

mountain Chandrabhaga in the Himalayas and prepares to
meditate and do tapas there. Brahma sends his son
Vasishtha to her so that he can instruct her in meditation
and tapas, telling him that she considers the temptation
she felt for them as her first death – the real death – and
now she wants to make her death complete by abandoning
her present body so that she can be reborn in a fresh,
unstained body. Brahma asks Vasishtha to assume a
different body so that Sandhya would not embarrassed by
his sight – she had sexually desired him earlier.
When Vasishtha sees her, Sandhya is sitting on the bank

of the Himalayan lake Brihal-lolita, near Mt.
Chandrabhaga. Seeing him, now appearing as an ascetic,
Sandhya bows deeply to him and responding to his
questions tells him she is Sandhya, she is blessed by his

sight, and she has come there to perform tapas but does
not know how to do it. Vasishtha asks her to meditate upon
Shiva – focus her attention on him, worship him using a
mantra he gives her. She does it for so long that her matter
hair growing down from her head covers her entire body,
leaving her face bare, making her look like a frost covered
lotus in the words of Shiva Purana. When Shiva appears
before her and offers her boons, she tells him her first
boon would be that no one should have sexual feelings
right from birth. She also requests that the man who would
become her husband should be an intimate friend of hers
and any man other than her husband who looks at her
lustfully should become impotent. These boons are
granted by a highly pleased Shiva who declares her free
from all stains from her past. Eventually she burns her
body in the sacrificial fire of Rishi Medhatithi and is reborn
from it as Arundhati and marries Vasishtha.
Vasishtha and Arundhati have since then been the highest

example for marital love and fidelity and the ideal couple in
every imaginable way. A ritual that is still performed in
Hindu marriages is called Arundhati darshana, seeing
Arundhati: immediately after marriage, the newly married
couple standing close to each other and holding hands
takes a look at the early morning sky for a view of
Arundhati, today seen as part of a constellation.
Thus Sandhya who begins as the embodiment of female

splendour and is used by Kama to tempt her own father
and brothers ends up as a symbol of not only beauty but
also loyalty, unswerving fidelity, perfect love, total
commitment and all other qualities that make married life

worth living. She also enjoys the total love of her man –
Vasishtha’s love for Arundhati is the most complete love a
man can have for his woman.
~*~
As we can easily see, the two women have hardly anything

common between them except that they are both young
and beautiful and the first women created. One is created
in anger and in order to punish man, for what was no fault
of man, the creator’s heart full of vengeance and fury,
whereas the other is born of meditative calmness, serenity,
joyfulness, the festive feeling that is the result of
meditation. Sandhya is also self-born, not intentionally
created; she just emerges from the Creator’s heart, as all
highest creation does, in what is called the flow state, in
what China calls wu-wei and India calls akarma, the state
of effortless efficiency in action with no actor/doer being
present, actions originating from the highest dimension of
existence, as a manifestation of the creativity that is
inherent in pure existence-consciousness-bliss. She is
born of egolessness, from the state of self-transcendence
that meditation takes us to, as all that is best in existence
is, unlike Pandora who is a creation of Zeus’ wounded ego.
Since bliss is the source of Sandhya’s origin, her essence
is blissfulness, what India calls ananda. There is absolutely
not one thing negative about Sandhya.
Whereas except that she is beautiful, desirable and can

become the mother of his children – a huge thing indeed,
of course – there is not one thing positive about Pandora.
The way Greek mythology describes it, the joy she

promises is a trap. Her true promise is what she is born to
do to man – fill his heart and home with hatred and
jealousy, with competitiveness and rivalry with others, with
anger and jealousy, with lust, grief and sorrow, with fear,
anxiety, discontent, greed, envy, cruelty, rage and the
hundred other negative emotions. She would make man
hate man, make man kill man for her sake, would
transform what was heaven into hell. Pan-dora, all-gift, is
not a gift at all, but a pestilential curse.
Sandhya excites men sexually, fills their hearts and body

with lust, even forbidden lust, but that is not her fault. It is
because of Kama, the god of desire, love, lust – because
of the arrows Kama shoots at men. And she is as much a
victim of Kama as the men are. And when she has excited
men with incestuous desire for her, she feels guilty about it,
feels repugnance for herself, and deciding to atone for it,
sets out immediately on a journey to purify herself through
meditation and penance. In an act of atonement for what
she considers her sin – even though we can see she has
committed no sin – she wants to abandon the very body
which tempted them, in which she herself felt desire for
them. She then takes another birth, this time as the very
embodiment of chastity, loyalty, conjugal devotion and
what Krishna in the Gita calls dharma-aviruddha kama,
desire that does not go against dharma, righteousness, the
common good.
She does another amazing thing. Before abandoning the

body in which she feels she has sinned and done
something repugnant, as the Shiva Purana which
continues her story tells us, she would spend years praying
to God, meditating upon Shiva, and when he appears, ask
him as her first boon: that no newborn would feel the
sexual urge, sexuality would awaken only years later, when
the child has grown up.
I want to add one more thing here, a beautiful thing that

her story tells us: the way to self-mastery, to mastery over
unbridled sexuality as well as over everything else, is
consciousness, what the western world today calls
mindfulness. In fact that is the only path to self-mastery,
which all of us need everywhere, at all times, the absence
of which leads us to excesses and to horrible crimes, news
about which the media fills us every morning as we sit
down to watch the news on TV. Shiva in Indian culture
stands for consciousness, awakened consciousness, pure
consciousness – the chit/chid of sat-chid-ananda. It is his
sight that awakens Brahma, the prajapatis and the mind-
born sons of brahma from the darkness of blind lust. Again,
it is his sight that awakens Sandhya. The antidote for
Kama’s arrows is Shiva, consciousness, conscious living,
awakened living, mindful living. The Shiva Sutra, a brilliant
Kashmiri Sanskrit text tells: trisu chaturtha? tailavad
asechya?, a sutra that asks us to bring in the fourth state,
consciousness, into our other states – waking, dream, and
sleep. This is the highest spiritual path and the only way
worth living, and that is what Sandhya teaches us through
her own practice.
To conclude, Pandora is woman as a punishment to man,

as a curse, created in anger, to destroy, whereas Sandhya
is a result of meditativeness, an expression of God’s
creativity, divine creativity, sacred creativeness, a

manifestation of creative sacredness in female form. She is
an expression of the beauty that is within God – sundaram
– finding expression in feminine form.
These two stories about the first woman speak of two

completely different perceptions of woman: India speaks of
her as irresistibly beautiful and essentially sacred, a
blessing upon mankind. Whereas for ancient Greece she
was a curse, a punishment, someone who sows seeds of
hell on earth.

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4/23/2021 Pandora and Sandhya by Satya Chaitanya :: Reader View

Pandora and Sandhya by Satya

Pandora is the ﬁrst woman created according to ancient

Let’s begin with Pandora. There are variations in the story

and perfect concord with gods and nature. Life was a

Enter Prometheus, the titan who had immense love for

have for themselves. Still not content with what he had

That was again an act that would not go unpunished by

That was the punishment for Prometheus. But men whom

men, to drive them crazy – she would be the source of all

Zeus was not ﬁnished yet, so furious was he, he ordered

forever driven to the unattainable, forever searching for the

The last gift given to Pandora as ordered by Zeus was

Pandora brings with her all these “gifts” in a jar. Down on

The vengeance of Zeus is complete now.

This then is the story of Pandora, the ﬁrst woman created

Let us now take a look at the story of Sandhya, the ﬁrst

Brahma, the Creator [different from Brahman the Ultimate

And then, all of a sudden, without any warning, as they sat

As the prajapatis and the mind-born sons of Brahma look

Well, he adds by way of concluding, why to say more,

Brahma then blesses him: May the hearts of living beings

This mind-born son of the Creator is given the name

it. A sweet, fragrant wind starts bowing and, as he lets go

Kama doesn’t spare Sandhya either – she too is hit by his

Sandhya too, pierced by the arrows of kama, starts

As Brahma looks at Sandhya, herself a victim of Kama and

Seeing his effect on Brahma, the prajapatis and the

It is at this moment that Shiva appears in the skies above

Hearing these words of Shiva, Brahma becomes doubly

From Bramha’s perspiration, says the Kalika Purana, are

perspiration of Daksha, who has a hard time controlling his

To end the story, Brahma becomes infuriated with Kama

As far as the Kalika Purana is concerned, the story of

the Vedas for such a sin – ending one’s body by entering a

She realizes she is inspired to meditate and purify herself

With these noble thoughts, Sandhya goes to the foot of the

When Vasishtha sees her, Sandhya is sitting on the bank

questions tells him she is Sandhya, she is blessed by his

Vasishtha and Arundhati have since then been the highest

Thus Sandhya who begins as the embodiment of female

commitment and all other qualities that make married life

As we can easily see, the two women have hardly anything

Whereas except that she is beautiful, desirable and can

The way Greek mythology describes it, the joy she

Sandhya excites men sexually, ﬁlls their hearts and body

She does another amazing thing. Before abandoning the

I want to add one more thing here, a beautiful thing that

To conclude, Pandora is woman as a punishment to man,

creativity, divine creativity, sacred creativeness, a

These two stories about the ﬁrst woman speak of two

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