High in the Himalaya, where the Ganga comes down out of the snow and spreads into her wide channel, lies the tirtha of Badarikashrama, and on its bank two sages had sat for a thousand years without rising. The heat of their tapas went out from that bank and scorched everything that moves and everything that stands still, and by the end of that thousand years the gods themselves were feeling it. The two were Nara and Narayana, portions of Lord Vishnu born into the house of Dharma. Dharma had come out of Brahma’s own heart, a Brahmin made of truth who never once stepped off the Vedic path, and as a householder sage he had taken ten daughters of Daksha Prajapati by the rite of panigrahana, the clasping of the bride’s hand before the fire. On them he fathered four sons: Hari, Krishna, Nara and Narayana. Hari and Krishna gave themselves to the practice of yoga. Nara and Narayana, ancient past any reckoning and the first among all who have ever sat down to austerity, climbed to the Himalaya’s peak, settled on the broad bank of the river, and sank into the contemplation of Brahman, and did not come up out of it for a thousand years.
That heat climbed as far as the throne of Indra, king of the gods, and he grew uneasy on it. Indra had never been able to leave an ascetic alone: let any man grow calm and absorbed in his japa and his dhyana, and the king of heaven was already looking for the way to break it. Now he turned this pair over in his mind. What do I do? These sons of Dharma are ascetics given wholly to meditation. Once their tapas ripens into full siddhi they will take my high seat. How do I put an obstacle in their way, so that the tapas cannot go on? Desire would do it, he decided, or anger, or a greed fierce enough to bend them. With that he mounted his great elephant Airavata and set off in haste for the Gandhamadana mountain.
He found them in the holy hermitage, and for a moment he could only look. Their bodies blazed with tapas; they looked like two suns coming up at once over the same ridge. Have Brahma and Vishnu come down here, he wondered, or have two suns risen together? And who can say what these sons of Dharma will do with such a fire once it is theirs? Then he stepped forward and spoke. “Nara and Narayana, sons of Dharma, you are fortunate men. Tell me what you want, and I will give you the best of boons here and now. I have come for no other reason than to give it. Even if it is a thing that should never be given, I will give it, because your tapas has pleased me beyond measure.”
The illusion fails, and Kamadeva’s army marches
The two rishis, firm of mind and deep in their meditation, said nothing at all. Indra stood before them and said it again, and again, and the silence held. So he brought out the other thing he had carried up the mountain, his fearful, deluding maya. Wolves came out of the trees, then lions and tigers and every beast that lives on flesh, and went for the two seated men; then rain came down in sheets, wind tore through the hermitage, and fire ran along the ground. None of it reached the sons of Dharma. The boon had failed to tempt them and the fire and the wind failed to frighten them; the tigers and lions came at them and they did not stir from their seats. No one living could have broken that meditation. Indra looked at them a while longer and went home to his palace.
At home he sat with his grief and thought it through. Fear had failed with those two, and greed had failed. They were meditating on the Mahavidya, the Adishakti, the eternal one, mistress of all the worlds, the wondrous Para Prakriti herself. Every maya that gods or asuras have ever made comes out of that Bhagavati; who, however great a master of maya, could shake a man who meditates on her? How could anyone move men who hold her in a heart without stain? Whoever carries the Devi’s three seed-syllables in his heart, vagbija, kamabija and mayabija, cannot be shaken by anyone at all.
Yet maya had hold of Indra too, and under it he reached for the one weapon he had left. He called Kamadeva, the god of desire, and with him Vasanta, the spring. “Kamadeva,” he said, “take Vasanta and Rati and a company of apsaras and go now, quickly, to the Gandhamadana mountain. In a lonely corner of Badarikashrama two ancient rishis called Nara and Narayana are at their tapas. Manmatha, churner of minds, go to them and with your arrows fill their minds with desire. Bewitch them, unseat them, strike them and strike again, and finish this work of mine today. Bring those two sons of Dharma under your hand. What god is there in this world, what daitya, what man, who does not fall wholly to desire under your arrows? When Brahma is bewildered by them, and Shiva, and the moon, and Agni, and I myself, what do those two count for against the strength of your shafts? To help you I am sending this troop of apsaras, Rambha and the others, and they will be there. Tilottama alone could do this, or Rambha alone, or you alone; all of you together cannot fail, and there is no doubt in it. Do this work of mine and I will give you whatever you desire.” Then he told them what had already happened. “I tempted those two with boons, and they did not move from their place; they sat there calm, and my labor went for nothing. I made my maya and frightened them badly, and still they did not rise from their seats. They have not the slightest care whether their bodies live or die.”
Kamadeva heard him out and answered with respect. “Indra, I will do this work you want. If those two sages are meditating on Vishnu, or Shiva, or Brahma, or Surya, they will come under our power. There is one kind of man I cannot subdue: the devotee of the Devi who holds in his mind only the great seed-syllable ‘klim’, the Kamaraja, king over desire itself. If they are given with devotion to the worship of the Devi who is Mahashakti, my arrows will do nothing to those ascetics.” Indra sent him anyway. “Go, with all of these who stand ready. The work is hard, I know it; still you will do it, and it will be the finest thing you have done.” So, at Indra’s command, the whole array set out, fully prepared, for the place where the sons of Dharma sat at their hard tapas.
Spring arrives out of season
Vasanta reached Gandhamadana, best of mountains, ahead of them all. Every tree on the mountain broke into flower at once, and the bees came in swarms to hang above them. Mango and maulsiri, the lovely tilaka, fine kimshuka, sala and tala, tamala and mahua, every one of them stood dressed in blossom. From the branches the cuckoos began their calling, and creepers heavy with flowers started up the high slopes. Every living creature turned toward its mate, and in that intoxication they fell to playing with one another. A wind came up from the south, gentle, fragrant, pleasant on the skin, and in that hour even the sages’ minds grew restless. Then Kamadeva arrived with Rati, his wife, loosing his five arrows as he came, and took up his place in Badarikashrama as if he meant to stay. Rambha and Tilottama and the apsaras with them, mistresses of music, reached the same lovely hermitage and began to sing, songs bound tight in svara and tana.
The sweet singing, the cuckoos’ call and the humming of the bees did what the tigers and the fire had failed to do: the meditation of the two sages broke. They looked up at a spring that had no business being there, a whole forest in flower, and both of them were troubled. Has shishira, the cold tail of winter, passed before its hour today? Every creature in sight is overcome, aching with desire. How has the law of time itself turned over like this? Narayana, his eyes wide with wonder, turned to his brother. “Brother, look at this. Every tree stands adorned and bowed with flowers, the cuckoos are singing on them and rows of bees have settled. The lion that is spring has walked in here and torn open the terrible elephant that is shishira with the sharp claws of its palasha flowers.”
He went on, and as he spoke the season took the shape of a woman. “Look at her, Nara. Her hands are the red ashoka and her feet the kimshuka flower. Her hair is the blue ashoka, her face an open dark lotus, her eyes two blue lotuses, her breasts the fruit of the bilva, her teeth the opened kunda, her ears the mango’s blossom, her bright lips the bandhujiva, her nails the sinduvara. The cuckoo’s call is her voice. Her garment is kadamba flowers, her ornaments masses of peacock feathers, her anklets the crying of cranes, her girdle the madhavi creeper; the fine hair along her body is the ingudi’s leaves, and she walks like a swan gone drunk. This is Vasanta-shri, and she has filled Badarikashrama. I am amazed that she has come out of her season. Know this for certain: she has come to obstruct our tapas. Listen, that is the singing of the women of heaven, the kind of song that breaks meditation. Indra has tried this to destroy the tapas of us both; how else could Vasanta, king of the seasons, show his love out of season? Indra, enemy of the asuras, has raised this obstacle out of fear. These cool, fragrant, lovely winds have no other cause than Indra’s trick.”
Urvashi springs from the thigh
Narayana was still speaking when they came into view: Kamadeva, and behind him the women. Nara and Narayana saw them plainly, and wonder rose in both of them. Menaka was there, and Rambha and Tilottama, Pushpagandha, Sukeshi, Mahashveta, Manorama, Pramadvara, Ghritachi who knows every song and laughs beautifully, Chandraprabha, Soma whose singing is a cuckoo’s, Vidyunmala, Ambujakshi, Kanchanamalini, and many more beautiful apsaras besides. Their number came to sixteen thousand and fifty. At the sight of that vast army of Kamadeva the two sages were astonished. The women of the gods’ world, in divine garments and divine ornaments, lovely under divine garlands, bowed and stood before the brothers; then, with every coquetry they knew, they began deceitfully to sing, songs very rare on this earth, songs made to swell desire.
Narayana heard the song, and he answered it with warmth. “Sit and be at ease. I will give you a wonderful welcome, for you have come here from heaven, and that makes you our guests.” Then, Vyasa told King Janamejaya, pride came over the sage Narayana. Indra has sent these to obstruct our tapas, he thought, that much is certain. And what are they, these poor things? I will show my tapobala right now. I will make new apsaras, more divine in form than any of these.
With that thought he struck his thigh with his hand, and at once a woman stood there, beautiful in every limb. She had come from the uru, the thigh, of Lord Narayana, and so her name was Urvashi. The apsaras who had come to conquer looked at her and were struck with astonishment. Then, so that his guests should be waited on, the sage made as many more apsaras, each of them very beautiful, and they came bearing gifts of every kind, laughing and singing sweet songs, bowed to the two sages and stood before them with folded hands.
Caught in a net of his own making
The women Indra had sent, whose whole art is to rob others of their senses, lost their own at the sight of Urvashi, that wonder made out of tapas. Their lotus faces opened with a joy too large to hold, and along the creepers of their lovely bodies the gooseflesh came up like new shoots. They turned to the two sages and spoke. “Ah, how are we foolish apsaras to praise you? We have seen the power of your patience and your tapas, and we are lost in wonder. Who is there who does not burn under the arrows we dip in the poison of our sidelong glances? Yet your mind felt not the least pain. Now we know what you are: the supreme portions of Lord Vishnu himself, and treasuries of shama and dama and all that goes with them. We did not come here to serve you; we came only to do the work of Indra, king of the gods. By what fortune we have been given the sight of you two great sages, of what stored merit this is the fruit, we cannot tell. You could have cursed us. You looked on offenders like us as your own people, made your minds forgiving and lifted our distress. The discerning great do not spend their tapas on a curse that buys so paltry a fruit.”
The sons of Dharma listened to this humble speech with glad faces. They were men who had conquered desire and greed, and their limbs shone with the power of their tapas; they answered lovingly. “We are both very pleased with you all. Tell us what you want and we will give it. Take this lovely-eyed Urvashi with you and set out, all of you, for heaven. Let this charming young woman go from here as our gift. We have given this Urvashi, born of the thigh, to Indra for his pleasure. May all the gods be well. Now let each of you go as she pleases, and from this day on, obstruct no one’s tapas.”
The apsaras did not go. They bent at the sages’ feet and spoke again, and now they called him by Vishnu’s own names. “Narayana, with the deepest devotion and gladness we apsaras have found the nearness of your lotus feet; where are we to go now? Madhusudana, lotus-eyed, if you are pleased, if you truly mean to give us the boon we ask, then hear what is in our hearts. Become our husband. Grant us this, and all of us will serve you gladly. Let Urvashi and the other lovely-eyed women you have made go to heaven at your command; we sixteen thousand and fifty will stay here and serve you both. You said you would give us what we wished; give it, and keep your vow of truth. Madhava, the sages who know dharma and see the truth have called it himsa to break the hope of women bound in love. Fate brought us here out of heaven, and we are soaked through with love of you two. Do not abandon us. There is nothing you cannot do.”
Narayana answered them. “I conquered my senses and did tapas here for a full thousand years. How am I to destroy that now? I have no taste for the pleasure of the senses; it eats happiness and dharma together. How can a man who can tell one thing from another take up a pleasure that is the dharma of beasts?” The apsaras had an answer for that too. “Of the five pleasures, sound, touch, form, taste and smell, the pleasure of touch is the best of them. It is the root from which the juice of bliss is pressed, and no other pleasure stands above it. So take us at our word. Roam this Gandhamadana in the fullness of that bliss. If it is heaven you are reaching for, know for certain that heaven is no better than this Gandhamadana. Accept us all, and take your pleasure in this divine place.” Then the apsaras said no more, and waited.
Narayana, son of Dharma, heard them out and found he had nowhere left to stand. What do I do now? If I fall into the pleasures of the senses I become a laughingstock among the sages. This trouble has come to me from ahamkara, no doubt of it. Ahamkara is the root of dharma’s ruin and its chief cause; that is why the great have called it the root of the tree of samsara. I saw this troop of courtesans arrive and I could not keep silent; I talked with them gladly, and that is how I came to be a vessel of sorrow. I spent my dharma making Urvashi and the rest, and there was no need of it. Now these desire-stricken women are set on breaking my tapas. I am caught like a spider in its own web, caught badly, in a strong net I spun myself. If I set my worry aside and refuse them, their wish will come to nothing, they will curse me and go, and then, rid of them, I can do hard tapas in some lonely place. So be it: I will raise my anger and throw them off. He had resolved on it when the next thought came. Among everything that bars the way to happiness, anger is the second great enemy, after ahamkara, and it gives great pain; in this world it is more dreadful than desire and greed. Under anger a creature commits even murderous violence, which hurts every living thing and is a pond in the garden of hell. As the fire born of two trees rubbing together burns those same trees, so the dreadful anger born of a body burns that same body. He sat downcast, brooding, and it was his younger brother Nara who spoke, and spoke true. “Narayana, you are fortunate and you are wise. Give up anger. Take refuge in calm and destroy this strong ahamkara, for it was this very fault of ahamkara that once destroyed the tapas of us both. Because of these two, ahamkara and anger, we had to fight the asura king Prahlada in a war such as no one had seen, for a thousand divine years, and we both suffered greatly in it. So give up anger and be calm. The sages have called calm the root of tapas.” Narayana, son of Dharma, heard his brother, and he grew calm. The Bhagavatam, too, remembers Nara and Narayana.
Source: Shrimad Devi Bhagavata Mahapurana (Gita Press, Gorakhpur)