Anniyan - of Garuda Puranam and more

Obvious hype out of the way, the movie does rock. It seems to be loosely based on several movies – Fight Club, Samurai (The tamil movie starring Vikram again!), 4 the people, Chandramukhi (For the multiple personality disorder) and a slew of themes.

If this was all this movie was about I wouldn’t even have written so much. Instead the movie is based on our revered Garuda Puranam – based on personal life and afterlife.

The purana confirms there is a concept of hell in Hinduism too. Some of the information it reveals are:

It was read between Vishnu and Garuda it related to present life and afterlife and describes the ways to liberation and how one goes about achieving it.

After death, Yama, the Hindu god of death decides which path to go through when our soul enters his domain.

East gate: Good people, who gave shelter, respect their elders and read religious books and worship Shiva.

West gate: Worshippers of Vishnu who practice non violence, non stealing, recite Vedas, practice brahmacharya, ascetics, renunciates, who have the attitude of non-attachment (vairagya) and who have spiritual knowledge.

South gate: Sinners who suffer the worst tortures in hell of the Baitarani river that holds boiling hot blood and flesh.

Our physical body is made up of the six Chakras, we must breathe 21600 times during 24 hours and that each inhaling and exhaling be made into an act of japa mala with such mantras as Soham, Hare Ram etc. - Exact words from an online source

The Pranayama:

The book says that the pranayama is supposed to be the best healers, where inhaling, retention and exhaling can cure anyone of any disease.

The human body is a temporary cage and youth, wealth and are temporary too.

The book also specifies how to detect what type of a person man and woman you are interacting with based on some of their traits. Some of the rules defined are very detail oriented on how a family should be, how a woman should be in a family and what are the ways to attain moksha. One thing that caught my eye was that if the husband is untraceable, dead, or has renounced the world, is impotent or degraded - in these cases of emergency a woman can remarry.

The book also specifies the different punishments meted out to the sinner, for example if he neglects the food cooked to the others he fries in boiling oil in hell. If he does not care about the wellbeing of others he is tortured in hell with insects. If he does not help a suffering person, he will be killed by animals on a stampede.

Which brings me back to why I like the movie, it is one of the first movies that points to how great our vedic books and scripts are. It also shows how a man and woman should conduct themselves. The Vedas prescribe how a king should rule his country and the several ways to attain moksha.

Such movies are welcome, as it will instill faith of Hindus in our holy books, similar to movies like Omega Code and Meggido that I saw, which say that the Bible is a hidden code/ program which if decoded can make the owner of the code the next Satan.

If more movies like this can be made in India, to show the greatness of our Geetha and Vedas and that it can make great our country, I think the movie industry has done its job!