Meaning

anger
A strong feeling of annoyance, displeasure, or hostility.
wrath
Extreme anger.
passion
Strong and barely controllable emotion.

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Interpretation

“Krodha” (anger) is anger. Krodha is wrath. Krodha, is a passion that embodies all manifestations in the physical plane.

It is interesting to note that the number 3 is also representative of the fire element. The positive side of this energy expresses itself as creativity, however if motivated by negative thoughts, it has a destructive nature and manifests as “krodha”.

Rudyard Kipling,in his Jungle Book,portrays how a monkey king wants to become like a man;“Give me the power of man’s red flower, so I can be Like you …”. In Vedantic philosophy, understanding and controlling krodha is considered an important step towards becoming a civilised and an evolved being.

How does one identify krodha? Can krodha be justified? There are many stories that discuss Krodha. Rishi Durvāsa is known to get angry very easily. The story of King Ambarish and Rishi Durvāsa brings out the nature of krodha beautifully.

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Story

King Ambarish who had conquered the whole world was an ardent devotee of Vishnu. He once undertook the Dvadashi Vrata, which required him to start fasting on Ekadashi and break it at the start of Dvadashi and feed all the people.

As the moment of breaking the fast was drawing near, the mighty sage Durvāsa arrived and was received with all honours by Ambarisha. Durvāsa agreed to the king’s request to be his honoured guest, and asked the king to wait until he finished his bath in the river and returned.

As the auspicious moment approached when the king had to break his fast to to fulfil the vow of the vrata, Durvāsa did not turn up. On the advice of the sage Vasishta, the king broke his fast symbolically by taking a Tulasi leaf with water, and waited for the arrival of sage Durvāsa to offer him food.

Durvāsa, who was well known for his short temper, felt that Ambarisha had violated the respect due to a guest by breaking his fast before the guest had taken his meal, and in his rage created a demon to kill Ambarisha, out of a strand of his hair. Lord Narayana’s Sudarshana intervened, destroyed the demon and started chasing Durvasa himself. Durvasa was finally redeemed when he asked Ambarisha for forgiveness for his “lapse of good reasoning”.

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On the gameboard

Rishi Durvāsa, the son of Atri Muni, is considered an incarnation of Lord Shiva. He was obviously well aware of the need to break the fast at the auspicious time. He was also aware that Brahmarishi Vashishtha was advising King Ambarisha and that the King had only symbolically ended the fast, and not really partaken of any food. However, in his anger, Durvāsa lost the capacity to reason and immediately called in the Fire Demon to kill King Ambarisha. Such is the nature of krodha, that even the most learned of people have a lapse of reasoning when under it’s influence. The calm and composed King Ambarisha, only sought to be commissioned to serve the Supreme Lord Vishnu, since he felt his time had come to leave the mortal body. He did not call for protection from either his army, or his advisers or the Lord himself.

The player is encouraged to flip-over to related cells to experience the full essence of this cell. Start with dveṣa. The board is full of such beautiful symbolic relationships and messages for the player to discover and “win”. She is inspired to dwell on aspects of krodha in the stories she has heard and known. Six places ahead she sees the cell of kāma on the game board as she readies her dice of karma for her next throw.

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