By Dr. Devdutt Pattanaik – Author, Speaker, Illustrator, Mythologist
Social media is abuzz with a new generation of Babas on the internet. They are young, chubby and cute. They dress appropriately, say the right things and know how to play the media. They are gradually overshadowing the older generation of Babas, known for their beards, masculinity and knowledge of the supernatural. People are left wondering who the true Baba is, with arguments flying fiercely on each side.
This shift from old, bearded Babas to young, chubby Babas is even reflected in memes involving Hindu gods. Older memes often depicted gods as muscular men with stern, angry expressions. A newer set of memes portray gods as little children — be it Radha, Krishna or Durga — all looking cute and cuddly. It seems as though our insecurities no longer seek a powerful, toxic male figure but instead find comfort in a lovable teddy bear. Perhaps people are tired of the muscled Ganesha and yearn for the return of the cuddly Ganesha that has brought solace to many.
In mythology, the rishi or sage comes in all shapes and sizes. A sage can be a child, a youth or an old man, and the same applies to gods. The Sapta Rishis are typically visualised as bearded old men in the sky. The Nava Naths are always depicted as bearded men wandering through forests. Brahma is consistently shown as bearded. Valmiki and Vyasa, the authors of the Ramayana and Mahabharata epics, are also depicted as bearded old men. Agastya occasionally appears with a potbelly and is shown as short, but most sages are tall, fit and lean, with lithe, yogic bodies. There is the angry Durvasa and the mild Dattatreya.
In terms of children, there are the Sanat Kumaras — the four child-like sages mentioned in the Upanishads. There is Narad, the mischievous gossip-mongering sage, with lute and cymbals, travelling to every world to create trouble. Then there is Suka Muni, the parrot-headed child of Vyasa, who remembers everything and has an innocent perspective. In the Nath traditions, there is Balak Nath of Himachal, who rides a peacock and distances himself from the older group of the Nava Naths, especially Gorakhanth.
Among the gods, if there is the fierce Shiva of the Hindutva movement, the Bhairavas of the Tantric tradition and the pot-bellied Buddho-baba of Bengal, there is also Batuk Bhairav of Kashmir, the boy-like Shiva.
Vishnu manifests as the child-like Vaman avatar, who later becomes a giant. He is the angry warrior priest Parashuram. He is also Krishna, the child capable of inhaling the entire universe. In Gita Govinda, he is a little child who turns into a handsome lad when he is alone with the milkmaids. It is a secret known only to milkmaids. Then men of the village did not know about this transformation.
Increasingly, we see Ram being presented as a young child or as boy-like, akin to Krishna, without family by his side, neither brothers nor parents by his side, alone with two service providers, Hanuman and Garuda, and a lot of role models around him, his toy weapons remind us of video games based on war that children now fill their time with, almost capturing the spirit of the Gen Z. Age, however, that does not matter.
In the Hindu worldview, a sage can be of any age. Wisdom is not shaped by experience alone. A young child can possess all the wisdom in the world, while an old man can be as ignorant and deluded as anyone else. This is an important theme in Hindu mythology: God is both a baby and a decrepit old man, and the same holds true for goddesses. In fact, goddesses encompass a full spectrum of ages, ranging from the pre-pubescent girl (Kamala) and young lady (Sodasi) to the matriarch (Matangi) and the crone (Dhumavati).
Greek myths also had gods who were child-like as in the case of Eros, young like Apollo, matured like Ares and old like Zeus. The goddess could be the young Persephone, the matriarchal Hera and the old crone, Hecate. Spiritual comfort sometimes comes from the young and sometimes from the old, depending on whether we feel old or young.
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