Question about Hindu god Chitragupta
February 23, 2020 2:24 PM Subscribe
In Hindu mythology, Chitragupta was born to help Yama avoid making mistakes. What became of Yama’s previous mistakes?
According to the Wikipedia page on Chitragupta:
...it is said that Lord Brahma gave the land of the dead over to the god Yama, also known as Yamraj. Yama would become confused sometimes when dead souls would come to him, and would occasionally send the wrong souls to either heaven or hell. Lord Brahma commanded him to keep better track of everyone, and Yama declared that he could not reasonably be expected to keep track of the many people born of the eighty-four hundred thousand different life forms of planet Earth.
In response, Lord Brahma meditated for 11,000 years and found that Chitragupta had sprung from his body. Chitragupta was given the charge of keeping records of all of humanity's actions from birth to death.
Question: Is there anything that tells what happened to the (what I must assume to be) many beings sent to the wrong places? Was there any correction made under Chitragupta's record-keeping? If possible, I would like to read some source material on this story and what may have become of those misplaced beings.
According to the Wikipedia page on Chitragupta:
...it is said that Lord Brahma gave the land of the dead over to the god Yama, also known as Yamraj. Yama would become confused sometimes when dead souls would come to him, and would occasionally send the wrong souls to either heaven or hell. Lord Brahma commanded him to keep better track of everyone, and Yama declared that he could not reasonably be expected to keep track of the many people born of the eighty-four hundred thousand different life forms of planet Earth.
In response, Lord Brahma meditated for 11,000 years and found that Chitragupta had sprung from his body. Chitragupta was given the charge of keeping records of all of humanity's actions from birth to death.
Question: Is there anything that tells what happened to the (what I must assume to be) many beings sent to the wrong places? Was there any correction made under Chitragupta's record-keeping? If possible, I would like to read some source material on this story and what may have become of those misplaced beings.
Response by poster: Why not you, OP? Why not you?
Thanks, MiraK. TBH, I got reading about this because a friend and I challenged each other to write our first short stories this month. I had a basic story arc but no established historical/mythological basis to work from, so I started looking for interesting characters and history. Chitragupta's origin story caught my attention, but I couldn't find any sourced commentary on the time before his creation w.r.t. misjudged souls (and I didn't necessarily want to rewrite something that was already canon).
At this point, I think I will explore it and see if it goes anywhere. It's my first story!
posted by klausman at 5:19 PM on February 25, 2020 [2 favorites]
Thanks, MiraK. TBH, I got reading about this because a friend and I challenged each other to write our first short stories this month. I had a basic story arc but no established historical/mythological basis to work from, so I started looking for interesting characters and history. Chitragupta's origin story caught my attention, but I couldn't find any sourced commentary on the time before his creation w.r.t. misjudged souls (and I didn't necessarily want to rewrite something that was already canon).
At this point, I think I will explore it and see if it goes anywhere. It's my first story!
posted by klausman at 5:19 PM on February 25, 2020 [2 favorites]
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Sounds like an excellent opening for your own story to fit :) I'm not even kidding. So much of Hindu mythology is transparently fanfic and retconning by successive generations. Why not you, OP? Why not you?
posted by MiraK at 11:13 AM on February 25, 2020 [1 favorite]