Literatarot
XII - Appeso/Hanged One
- Baitaal Pachisi
Swati is an entrepreneur and Tarot reader who works with Tarot as a transformational and healing tool. She has conducted numerous workshops and seminars on Tarot and its applications. She has been into the mystical and magickal arts since childhood and has in the last seven years attempted to create more awareness about Tarot as a spiritual tool. She lives and practices in Mumbai and is the founder of Tarot India Network. She hopes to bring out more and more transformation with the use of Tarot as a helping art. Visit www.swatiprakash.com
Description:
Baitaal Pachisi or Twenty Five Tales of Baitaal is about a king named Vikramaditya and a spirit named Baitaal who could inhabit dead bodies. The king was urged by a sage to go to an old tree and fetch the body of a corpse for the purpose of a yagya or ritual that the sage had to perform. As king Vikramaditya went to the ancient tree whose bark was glowing as if on fire in the dark hour of the night he noticed the lean corpse hanging from one of the branches, suspended upside down magically from its toes. Fearlessly the king brought the corpse down and noticed that it was wailing. As soon as he uttered, 'Who art thou?', the corpse who was actually Baitaal flew like a wisp and hung back up on the branch. This repeated six times and the seventh time noting the Kings obstinacy, Baitaal agreed to be taken by Vikram through the forest. On the way Baitaal, who was actually a wise spirit, proposed to entertain the travelers with witty tales at the end of which he was to pose a question to the king. However he added this, "Whenever thou answerest me, either compelled by Fate or entrapped by my cunning into so doing, or thereby gratifying thy vanity and conceit, I leave thee and return to my favorite place and position in the siras-tree, but when thou shalt remain silent, confused, and at a loss to reply, either through humility or thereby confessing thine ignorance, and impotence, and want of comprehension, then will I allow thee, of mine own free will, to place me before thine employer. Perhaps I should not say so; it may sound like bribing thee, but--take my counsel, and mortify thy pride, and assumption, and arrogance, and haughtiness, as soon as possible. So shalt thou derive from me a benefit which none but myself can bestow." And so began the tales, each one cleverer than the other. After each tale King Vikram, forgetting Baitaal's advice spoke out the answer and each time Baitaal flew back to the tree and hung itself upside down. The twenty-fifth time the King remained silent and this is when Baitaal, finally pleased at the King explained to him that the sage was actually an evil magician who intended to kill Vikramaditya to complete his ritual and this way the life of King Vikramaditya was saved as he went with alertness and killed the evil magician.
The present card shows Baitaal in its spirit like form hanging by the ancient tree and the medium used is wood, tree foliage and oil. The tales of Baitaal Pachisi tell us that it is important to keep silent, to subdue ones ego and to sacrifice ones vanity, haughtiness and conceit to gain that knowledge which is important for oneself. This literature also indicates that sometimes delays on ones journey may be there but they are meant to teach us something without which the journey would be meaningless.