Shri Narayana went on with the story for Narada. Shankhachud, king of the danavas, bowed his head to Shiva and at once mounted his vehicle with his ministers, the jeweled ornaments glinting on him. In the same hour Mahadeva ordered his army and the gods to battle, and Shankhachud drew up his own host to meet them. Then, while the two armies closed, Bhagavan Shankara sat down under a banyan tree with Bhagavati Kali and his son Kartikeya, and the danava king took his seat on a lovely jeweled throne with crores of danavas ranged around him.
The war that followed was like the ending of all things. Mahendra fought Vrishaparva, Surya fought Viprachitti, Chandra fought Dambha; Kala closed with Kalasvara, Agni with Gokarna, Kubera with Kalakeya, Vishvakarma with Maya, Mrityu with Bhayankara, Yama with Samhara, Varuna with Vikankana, Pavana with Chanchala; the eleven Rudras grappled with eleven terrible danavas, Mahamari with Ugrachanda, and Nandishvara and all the ganas with the danava hosts. The danavas broke many of Shankara’s warriors and sent the gods running with their limbs cut open, until Kartikeya, angered, took the fear off the gods, poured his own tejas into his ganas, and went in alone against the danava army; a hundred akshauhinis died under him. Lotus-eyed Kali was on the field too. She felled asuras by the hundreds and in great anger began to drink the danavas’ blood, seizing ten lakh elephants and crores of soldiers in one hand and putting them into her mouth as if at play, until thousands of headless trunks were dancing on the ground. The danavas, torn by Kartikeya’s arrows, fled; Vrishaparva, Viprachitti, Dambha and Vikankana turned and fought him, and Mahamari with them, and flowers rained from heaven on that fight. Then King Shankhachud himself rose into a vimana and rained arrows down like a cloud. Darkness and flame covered everything, the gods and Nandishvara’s ganas fled, and Kartikeya alone stood. The king rained mountains on him, serpents, stones and trees, until Kartikeya was hidden as the sun is hidden by fog; he cut Kartikeya’s bow, broke his divine chariot, wore down his peacock with a divine weapon, and hurled a sun-bright shakti into his chest. Kartikeya fainted for a moment, came back to himself, took up the divine bow Vishnu had once given him, mounted a vimana of the finest jewels, and fought with everything he had. He cut the danava’s rain of serpents and mountains out of the air, quenched his fire with the parjanya weapon, and as if in play cut away Shankhachud’s chariot, bow, armor, charioteer, crown and diadem, and sent a white shakti into his chest. Shankhachud fainted, revived, mounted another chariot, took another bow, and, the best of all mayavis, spread a net of arrows by maya over Kartikeya. Then he took up a shakti that never failed, bright as hundreds of suns, like the flame of the pralaya fire, forever wrapped in Vishnu’s tejas, and hurled it in anger; it struck Kartikeya and he fell senseless. Bhadrakali gathered him onto her lap and carried him to Shiva, and Shiva, as if it were a small thing, revived him by his jnana, gave him boundless strength, and set him on his feet. Then Bhadrakali, who had stood guard over Kartikeya until now, set out for the field herself. Nandishvara and the heroes went with her, and gods, gandharvas, yakshas, rakshasas and kinnaras, and drummers, and hundreds of bearers carrying madhu. When she reached the field she roared like a lion, and danavas fainted at the sound; she laughed terribly again and again, drank the madhu, and danced, and Ugradamshtra, Ugradanda, Kotavi, the yoginis, the dakinis and the gods drank with her. Shankhachud came quickly at the sight of her and gave his frightened danavas heart again. She hurled the agneya weapon, bright as the pralaya flame, and the king put it out with his parjanya weapon as if at play; she hurled the fierce varuna weapon, and he cut it with the gandharva weapon; she hurled the maheshvara weapon, fiery as flame, and he undid it easily with the vaishnava weapon. Then she hurled the narayana weapon with its mantra, and the king saw what was coming toward him, stepped down from his chariot and bowed; the weapon went straight up into the sky, and Shankhachud lay flat on the ground before it like a fallen staff and bowed again with devotion. She hurled the brahmastra with its mantra, and he calmed it with his own brahmastra; she hurled a divine weapon, and he destroyed it in a net of divine weapons of his own; she hurled a shakti a full yojana long, and he cut it into hundreds of pieces. Then, her anger rising, Bhadrakali took up the mantra-purified pashupata.
At that instant a voice spoke from the sky to stop her, and the voice was Brahma’s. “This great-souled king will not die by the pashupata. As long as he wears at his throat the kavacha of Bhagavan Shri Hari’s mantra, and as long as his chaste wife’s chastity remains, old age and death cannot touch him.” Bhadrakali heard it and held the weapon back. Hungry now, she began to swallow danavas by the crore as if at play, and when she rushed to swallow Shankhachud himself the danava stopped her with his sharpest divine weapon. She hurled a sword bright as the summer sun; he cut it into hundreds of pieces. When the Mahadevi rushed at him again to eat him, Shankhachud, lord of every siddhi, took on a huge form, and the terrible Kali smashed his chariot with one blow of her fist and killed his charioteer. She hurled her trident like the flame of the pralaya fire, and he caught it in his left hand as if at play. She struck him with her fist, and he reeled and fainted for a moment, and when his own tejas brought him back he stood and bowed to her. He did not wrestle with her. He had cut her weapons out of the air or caught them, and in all that fight that Vaishnava never once loosed a weapon at her, out of devotion to the Mother. The Devi seized him, whirled him around several times, and flung him upward in her anger; he fell with great speed, stood up at once, bowed to Bhadrakali, and climbed gladly into a lovely jeweled vimana, and in that whole great battle he did not rest for a moment. Then Bhagavati, still hungry, drank the danavas’ blood, and when she had drunk and eaten she went to Shankara and told him the battle in order. Shankara laughed to hear how the danavas had died. “A lakh of danavas are still on the field,” she told him. “Some escaped from my mouth as I ate. When I was about to loose the pashupata to kill Shankhachud, a voice said that King Shankhachud cannot be killed by me. That great-minded king, whose strength has no limit, loosed no weapon at me, and kept cutting the arrows I loosed.”
A hundred years of war, and one old Brahmin
Shiva, master of tattva-jnana, heard everything, and then he went down to the battlefield himself with his ganas. The moment Shankhachud saw him he came down from his vimana and prostrated with supreme devotion, head to the earth, straight as a staff; then he climbed swiftly into his chariot, fastened his armor, and took up the bow no one else could bear. The battle of Bhagavan Shiva and the danava Shankhachud went on a full hundred years, and neither could conquer and neither could be beaten. Sometimes Bhagavan Shiva laid his weapon down and rested on his bull; sometimes the danava laid his down and rested on his chariot. Danavas past counting were killed in it, and every warrior of the gods’ side who fell Bhagavan Shiva brought back to life.
In the middle of it an old Brahmin, worn out and in great distress, came onto the battlefield and spoke to Shankhachud. “Give alms to a Brahmin. At this hour you can give away all the wealth there is, so give what my mind desires. First make a true promise that you will give to a helpless, old, thirsty Brahmin, and then I will tell you my wish.” Shankhachud’s face and eyes brightened with joy. “Yes, yes. Very well.” Then Shri Hari, in the old Brahmin’s form and with great maya, said the rest. “I want your kavacha.”
The armor, the illusion, and the trident
Shankhachud heard him and gave the armor, and Shri Hari took it. Then, taking Shankhachud’s own form, he went to Tulsi, and there, by maya, he placed his tejas in her. In that same hour Shankara took into his hand the trident Shri Hari had given him, to hurl at Shankhachud: bright as the midday sun of summer and as the pralaya flame, unstoppable, fierce, never failing, a killer of enemies, equal in tejas to Vishnu’s chakra, the essence of all weapons, terrible and too heavy for any hand except Shiva’s and Keshava’s, a thousand bows long and a hundred hands wide, the living Brahman itself, eternal, and seen by few. Bhagavan Shankara balanced that trident, which could destroy the whole brahmanda, on his hand as if at play, and hurled it at Shankhachud.
Now the whole secret was clear to the king. He gave up his bow, sat down in yogasana with full understanding, and with devotion meditated on the lotus feet of Shri Krishna. The trident circled for a time, came down on Shankhachud, and as if at play burned him to ash with his chariot. Then Shankhachud took the guise of a gopa, a youth of divine form, two-armed, a flute in his hand and jeweled ornaments on him; he mounted a superb jeweled vimana that had come from Goloka, and ringed by crores of gopas he went to Goloka. There, in Vrindavan, he bowed his head with devotion at the lotus feet of Shri Krishna and Radha where they sat in the middle of the rasa-mandala, and at the sight of the gopa Sudama both their faces and eyes bloomed with joy, and with great love they seated him on their lap. The trident went swiftly and respectfully back to Shri Krishna. From Shankhachud’s bones arose the race of conches, held pure in the worship of the gods in all its many forms. Conch-water is the most excellent of waters, pure, a tirtha in itself, and it gives supreme pleasure to every god except Shankara alone. Where the conch sounds, Lakshmi dwells steadily; whoever bathes in conch-water has bathed in all tirthas; the conch is the seat of Shri Hari, and where the conch is, Shri Hari is, and Lakshmi with him, and every inauspicious thing flees. When women sound the conch, and above all when Shudras do, Lakshmi takes fright and anger and leaves that place for another land. Having killed the danava Shankhachud, Shiva mounted his bull and went joyfully with his ganas to Shivaloka. The gods got their kingdom back and rejoiced; drums sounded in heaven, gandharvas and kinnaras sang, flowers rained down on Shiva, and the gods and the great munis praised him.
Tulsi deceived, and her curse
Narada wanted to know what form Bhagavan Narayana had worn when he placed his seed in Tulsi, and Shri Narayana told him. Shri Hari, always ready to do the gods’ work, had taken Shankhachud’s armor by his Vaishnavi maya and then taken Shankhachud’s own form, and he went to chaste Tulsi’s house to destroy her pativratya and so open the way to Shankhachud’s death. At the door of her house he had drums sounded and cries of victory raised, so that the beautiful Tulsi would know her husband had come home victorious. She heard it and rejoiced, and with great eagerness looked out from the window toward the royal road. She gave wealth to the Brahmins and had the auspicious rites performed, and gave to the bards, the beggars, the sutas and the magadhas. Then Bhagavan Shri Hari stepped down from the chariot and entered her beautiful, priceless, jewel-built palace, and when she saw her radiant husband before her she rejoiced, washed his feet with love, bowed to him, and began to weep. She seated him on a lovely jeweled throne and gave him tambula scented with camphor. “Today my birth and my life have both borne fruit, for the man who went out to the battlefield is home again.” Then, smiling, glancing at him sideways, her limbs thrilling with desire, Tulsi asked him in sweet words about the battle. “How did you win against Shiva, who destroys brahmandas past counting? Tell me.” Lakshmikanta Shri Hari, in Shankhachud’s form, laughed and answered her in a voice like nectar. “Our battle went on a full year, and in it all the danavas were destroyed. Then Brahma himself made friendship between us, and at his order I gave the gods back all their rights. Then I came home, and Shiva went to his world.” Saying this, Jagannatha Ramapati Shri Hari lay down on the bed. And as he sported with her, chaste Tulsi, reflecting in her mind, knew everything. “Who are you? You are some lord of maya. Tell me who you are. You have destroyed my chastity by deceit, and so I curse you.”
Hearing Tulsi, Bhagavan Shri Hari, out of fear of the curse, let his charming Vishnu form appear as if in play. Devi Tulsi saw before her the eternal Shri Hari, god of gods: dark as a new cloud, his eyes like autumn lotuses, lovely as crores of Kamadevas, adorned with jeweled ornaments, gently smiling, gracious of face, in yellow silk, of a beauty nothing matched. She fainted outright at the sight of him, and after a while, recovering, she spoke. “You have become like stone. There is no mercy in you. You destroyed my dharma by deceit and killed my husband. You are stone-hearted and merciless, so become stone in the world this very moment. Those who call you good are deluded, no doubt of it. Why did you kill your own devotee to accomplish another’s good?” And grief-stricken Tulsi wept and wept, and lamented again and again.
Gandaki, Tulsi, and the Shalagram
Kamalapati Shri Hari, ocean of compassion, saw the state she was in and consoled her with words that held reason in them. “Living in Bharata you did tapas for me a long time, and this Shankhachud too did long tapas for you then. He got you as his wife and gained the fruit of his tapas and sported with you, and now it is right to give you the fruit of yours. Give up this body, take a divine body, delight with me, and be to me what Lakshmi is. This body of yours will be famed as the river Gandaki, and that holy river will give the best merit to the people of holy Bharatavarsha. Your mass of hair will be set up as a holy tree, and the tree born of your hair will be famed by the name Tulsi. Of all the flowers and leaves of the three worlds used in the worship of the gods, Tulsi will be held chief. In svarga, in the mortal world, in patala and in Goloka, everywhere you will be near me, and as Tulsi, best of trees, you will always stand among the flowers. In Goloka, on the bank of the Viraja, in the rasa-mandala, in Vrindavan and Bhandiravana and Champakavana and the lovely Chandanavana, in the groves of madhavi, ketaki, kunda, mallika and malati, in all these holy places you will dwell and give merit. All the tirthas will live in the holy ground near the roots of the Tulsi tree, and I and all the gods will live there so that Tulsi leaves may fall on us.” Then he told her what her leaf would be worth. Whoever bathed in Tulsi-leaf water had bathed in all tirthas and been consecrated in all yajnas. The satisfaction Shri Hari took from thousands of pitchers of nectar he took from the offering of one Tulsi leaf; a leaf given in Kartika carried the fruit of ten thousand cows; whoever drank Tulsi water daily with devotion gained the merit of a lakh ashvamedhas, and whoever wore a mala of Tulsi wood gained an ashvamedha’s fruit at every step. One who at death received Tulsi-leaf water was freed of all sins and set in Vishnuloka, and into whosever mouth even a drop of it reached at the last went on a jeweled vimana to Vishnuloka. One who broke a promise with Tulsi in his hand fell into Kalasutra for as long as the sun and moon lasted, and one who swore falsely near Tulsi went to Kumbhipaka for the span of fourteen Indras. Those who plucked her leaves on purnima or amavasya or dvadashi, at the sun’s sankranti, at midday or at night or in the two sandhyas, in a state of impurity, in night clothes or with oil on the body, cut off Shri Hari’s own head; and yet for shraddha, vrata, dana, pratishtha and worship a Tulsi leaf stayed pure for three nights even when stale, and a leaf fallen on the ground or in water, or once offered to Vishnu, was pure again for other uses once it was washed.
“As the presiding goddess of trees you will sport forever with me, Krishna, in eternal Goloka,” he went on. “As the most meritorious of the goddesses who preside over the rivers of Bharata you will be the wife of the salt ocean, who is my own portion. And you yourself will always be in Vaikuntha near me as my wife, like Lakshmi; have no doubt of it. I too, by your curse, will become stone and live near the bank of the Gandaki in Bharatavarsha. Crores of insects living there will cut at that rock with their sharp teeth, the best weapons they have, and make the mark of my chakra in its hollow.” Then he named the stones that would come of it. One with a single door-mark, four chakras and the line of a vanamala, colored like a new cloud, would be Lakshmi-Narayana; the same without the vanamala line, Lakshmi-Janardana. Two doors, four chakras, a cow’s-hoof mark and no vanamala made Raghunatha. Two very tiny chakras without the vanamala, new-cloud dark, was Bhagavan Vamana, and with the vanamala Shridhara, who gives shri to householders forever. A thick round stone with two clear chakras and no vanamala was Damodara; a medium round one with two chakras and the marks of arrow and quiver and an arrow’s cut was Rama, who shines in battle; a medium one with seven chakras, an umbrella and ornaments was Rajarajeshvara, giver of great royal wealth; a thick one with fourteen chakras and the luster of a new cloud was Ananta, giver of the four aims. Chakra-shaped, with two chakras and the marks of shri and a cow’s hoof, was Madhusudana; a lovely stone with one hidden chakra was Gadadhara, and two chakras with a horse’s face was Hayagriva. A very wide mouth, two chakras and a fearsome look made Narasimha, who gives vairagya fast, and the same with a vanamala made Lakshmi-Nrisimha, who gives householders happiness. Two chakras and a clear mark of shri at the door was Vasudeva, giver of all desires; a tiny chakra, new-cloud dark, with many small holes at the mouth was Pradyumna; two chakras joined together on a broad back was Sankarshana; and a very lovely round stone of yellow luster was Aniruddha. “Where the Shalagrama stone is, Shri Hari dwells, and Lakshmi with all the tirthas dwells there always, and brahmahatya and every other sin perish by its worship.” An umbrella-shaped stone gave a kingdom and a round one gave Mahalakshmi, and a cart-shaped one gave pain, a spear-tipped one death, a misshapen mouth poverty, a tawny stone loss, a broken chakra disease and a split stone death. Vrata, snana, pratishtha, shraddha and worship done near a Shalagrama were the best of their kind; whoever bathed it daily and drank its water received the prasada the gods themselves desired, all the tirthas wished to touch him, sins fled him as snakes flee Garuda, the earth was purified by the dust of his feet, lakhs of his ancestors were saved, and he lived on in Hari’s loka in service through countless pralayas. Whoever drank Shalagrama water at death was freed of all sins and reached nirvana-mukti at Vishnu’s feet. Whoever spoke falsely holding a Shalagrama went to Kumbhipaka for Brahma’s lifespan, and whoever broke a promise holding one went to Asipatra for a lakh of manvantaras. “One who takes a Tulsi leaf off the Shalagrama is parted from his wife in the next birth; one who parts a Tulsi leaf from a conch is wifeless and diseased for seven births; and the wise man who keeps Shalagrama, Tulsi and conch together is very dear to Shri Hari.”
Then he said one thing more. “When a man has even once spent solitude with a woman, parting brings sorrow to both. You were Shankhachud’s wife for a manvantara, so parting from him will surely be painful.” With that Bhagavan Shri Hari fell silent. Tulsi gave up that body, took a divine form, and shone like Lakshmi on Shri Hari’s chest, and Lakshmipati Shri Hari went with her to Vaikuntha. So these four goddesses, Lakshmi, Sarasvati, Ganga and Tulsi, became the wives of Bhagavan Shri Hari. At that very moment the river Gandaki rose from Tulsi’s body, and on its bank Bhagavan Shri Hari became the Shalagrama, giver of merit to men.
The insects living there cut the stones into their many forms still. Those that fall into the water give the best fruit; those that lie on the ground turn yellow in the heat of the sun, and those are the pingala stones. Shri Narayana had told Narada the whole account, and asked him what more he wished to hear.
Source: Shrimad Devi Bhagavata Mahapurana (Gita Press, Gorakhpur)