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A beaten pup at the sacrifice on Kurukshetra: Sarama’s curse, the priest Somashrava, and the pupil who lay down in the breach of a field’s dyke
Sauti the storyteller went on, and the sages of the Naimisha forest, sitting at ease between the rites of their own long sacrifice, let him. The telling he began now would arrive, before it was done, at one of the causes of King Janamejaya’s sacrifice of snakes. It began at another sacrifice, on another ground, with a dog. Janamejaya, the son of Parikshit, was holding a long rite on the plain of Kurukshetra, a sacrifice of many days around a fire fed with clarified butter, and his three brothers, Shrutasena, Ugrasena and Bhimasena, sat there with him. While the four of them were at the sacrifice the dog came onto the ground. It was a young one, and its mother was Sarama, the hound who belongs to the gods. The king’s brothers saw a dog near the offerings and beat it, and the pup ran back to its mother howling. It would not stop crying, and Sarama asked, “Why are you crying like this? Who has beaten you?” “The brothers of Janamejaya beat me,” the pup said. She knew what a dog gets beaten for at a sacrifice, and she said so. “Then you did something wrong, and that is why they beat you.” “I did nothing wrong,” said the pup. “I never touched the sacrificial butter with my tongue. I never even looked at it.”
Sarama heard that, and the sight of her son in pain was more than she could stand. She went to the place where Janamejaya sat with his brothers at their long rite, and she spoke to the king in open anger. “This son of mine has done nothing wrong. He did not look at your sacrificial butter. He did not touch it with his tongue. Why was he beaten?” The men who had done the beating were sitting right there, and they said nothing at all. So Sarama gave them her answer. “You have beaten my son, who did no wrong. For that, evil will come upon you, and it will come when you least expect it.” Then the hound of the gods was gone, and Janamejaya sat on in the middle of his own sacrifice with a curse on his house. He was badly frightened, and his spirits sank. He saw the rite through to its end and went home to Hastinapura, and there he set about one task with great care: finding a purohita, a priest of his own household, whose rites could win him absolution for the sin and take the force out of what Sarama had said.
He found his man while he was out hunting. In one corner of his kingdom he came upon a hermitage, the home of a rishi, a forest sage of some fame, named Shrutashrava, and the rishi had a son, Somashrava, who was deep in ascetic practice. Janamejaya wanted that son for his priest. He saluted the rishi and asked for him outright. “Let this son of yours be my purohita.” Shrutashrava told the king exactly what he would be taking home. “Janamejaya, this son of mine is deep in his austerities and accomplished in the study of the Vedas, and the full force of my own ascetic power is in him. He was born from the womb of a she-snake who had drunk my seed. He can absolve you of every offense, save only those committed against Mahadeva. He has one habit you should know about. Whatever a Brahmin begs of him, he gives. If you can put up with that, take him.” “So be it,” said Janamejaya, and he accepted Somashrava as his priest and returned to his capital. There he spoke to his brothers, the same three whose hands had brought the curse down. “This is the man I have chosen as my spiritual master. Whatever he tells you to do, you will do, and you will not stop to examine it.” The brothers did as they were told. With his house put in order in this way, the king marched on Takshashila and brought that country under his rule.
About this same time there lived a rishi named Ayoda Dhaumya, and he had three disciples in his house: Upamanyu, Aruni and Veda. A disciple in such a house had only his teacher’s word to live by, and each of the three was tried by it in his turn. One day Dhaumya told Aruni, who came from Panchala, to go and stop a breach in the water channel of a certain field, where the bank had given way. Aruni went where he was sent. When he reached the place he saw that the gap could not be closed by any ordinary means. The water went on running out, and he stood there in distress, because he could not do the one thing his teacher had asked of him. At last he saw a way. “Well,” he said, “I will do it like this.” He climbed down into the breach and lay there, and with his own body he held the water in.
Some time afterward Ayoda Dhaumya asked his other disciples where Aruni of Panchala had gone. “Sir,” they answered, “you sent him yourself. You told him to go and stop the breach in the water channel of the field.” Dhaumya remembered, and said to his pupils, “Then let us all go to where he is.” When they reached the field he shouted across it. “Ho, Aruni of Panchala! Where are you? Come here, my child.” Aruni heard his teacher’s voice, came quickly up out of the channel and stood before him, dripping. “Here I am,” he said. “I was in the breach of the water channel. I could think of no other way to keep the water from running out, so I went in myself. It was only when I heard your voice that I left it, and now the water is escaping again. I salute you, master. Tell me what I am to do.” The teacher gave him a name. “In getting up out of the ditch you opened the water channel, and so from this day you will be called Uddalaka, as a mark of your teacher’s favor. You obeyed my words, and so good fortune will be yours. All the Vedas will shine in you, and all the Dharmashastras, the whole of the sacred law.” His trial was over. Aruni took that blessing and went away to the country his heart had chosen.
A key to reading this (the shape of the Paushya section, and the name Uddalaka): The Paushya section opens with a curse on Janamejaya’s house and closes with Janamejaya in a rage against a serpent. Between the two stand the trials of three disciples, and from the household of the third comes Uttanka, whose errand for a pair of earrings ends at the king’s court with the news of how the king’s father died. The teacher is introduced as Ayoda Dhaumya and is called Dhaumya for short from then on; the two names are one man. The name Uddalaka is explained as it is given: Aruni earns it by getting up out of the ditch and letting the water loose.
The gist: At a long sacrifice on Kurukshetra, Janamejaya’s brothers beat an innocent pup of Sarama, the hound of the gods, and she curses them with an evil that will come when they least expect it. Frightened, the king takes as his priest Somashrava, son of the rishi Shrutashrava: born of a she-snake, able to absolve every offense except those against Mahadeva, and in the habit of giving a Brahmin whatever he begs. Then Janamejaya conquers Takshashila. In those same days Ayoda Dhaumya’s pupil Aruni of Panchala stops a broken water channel with his own body and is named Uddalaka, with the promise that all the Vedas and all the Dharmashastras will shine in him.
The trial of Upamanyu: alms, milk and the calves’ froth taken away one by one, a pupil blinded by arka leaves at the bottom of a well, and the hymn to the Ashvins that gives him back his eyes
The second of Ayoda Dhaumya’s disciples was Upamanyu, and to him the teacher gave the herd, and with the herd a trial that came on one evening at a time. “Go, my child, Upamanyu. Look after the cows.” Upamanyu went. He watched the cattle all day, came back to his teacher’s house in the evening, stood before him and saluted him with respect. Dhaumya looked him over and saw a young man in very good condition. “Upamanyu, my child, what are you living on? You have grown very plump.” “Sir, I live by begging.” “What you get in alms,” said the teacher, “is not to be used by you until you have offered it to me.” Upamanyu took the order and went out. He begged his food and carried it to his teacher, and his teacher took the whole of it and gave nothing back. Upamanyu returned to the cattle. He watched them all day and in the evening stood before Dhaumya again and saluted him, and Dhaumya saw that he was in as good condition as ever. “Upamanyu, my child, I take from you everything you get in alms and leave you nothing. How are you keeping yourself now?” “Sir, when I have handed over to you all that I get in alms, I go begging a second time to feed myself.” “That is no way to obey your teacher,” Dhaumya said. “By doing this you cut into the living of others who depend on alms. A man who keeps himself like that has shown himself greedy.” Upamanyu agreed to every word of it and went back to the herd.
He watched the cows all day, came home, stood before his teacher and saluted him, and he was still fat. “Upamanyu, my child, I take all your alms, and you do not go begging a second time, and yet you look perfectly healthy. What are you living on?” “Sir, I live now on the milk of these cows.” “You have no right to take the milk,” said Dhaumya, “without first having my consent.” Upamanyu accepted the justice of that and went away to tend the cattle. When he came back to the house he stood before his teacher and saluted him as usual, and the teacher saw what he had seen every evening. “Upamanyu, my child, you no longer eat of your alms, you do not beg a second time, you do not even drink the milk, and still you are fat. How are you managing to live now?” “Sir, I sip the froth that the calves throw out while they suck at their mothers’ teats.” “These generous calves,” said Dhaumya, “out of pity for you, I suppose, throw out a great deal of froth. Would you stand between them and a full meal? Know that the froth is forbidden to you as well.” Upamanyu assented to this too, and went out with the cows as before. Now there was nothing left to take away. Held back by his teacher’s word, he did not eat of his alms and had nothing else to eat, he drank no milk, and he did not taste the froth.
One day in the forest, with hunger pressing on him, he ate the leaves of the arka plant. Those leaves are pungent, acrid, raw and salty, and what was in them went to his eyes. He lost his sight. Crawling about blind, he fell into a pit. That evening, when the sun was sinking behind the summits of the western mountains and he had not come home, Dhaumya remarked to his disciples that Upamanyu was not back yet. They told him he had gone out with the cattle. “I have cut Upamanyu off from the use of everything,” the teacher said, “and so, of course, he stays out until it is late. Let us go and look for him.” He went into the forest with his disciples and began to shout. “Ho, Upamanyu! Where are you?” Upamanyu heard his teacher’s voice and called back as loudly as he could, “Here I am, at the bottom of a well.” Dhaumya asked how he had come to be down there. “I ate the leaves of the arka plant and went blind, and so I fell into this well.” The teacher’s answer was an instruction. “Glorify the twin Ashvins, the two physicians of the gods, and they will give you back your sight.”
His teacher and his fellow disciples stood somewhere above him in the failing light. So Upamanyu, blind at the bottom of a well, did as he was told and began to praise the twin Ashvins in the words of the Rig Veda. “You were there before the creation. You are the firstborn, and you show yourselves in this wondrous universe of the five elements. I long to reach you through the knowledge that comes of hearing, and through meditation, for you are infinite. You are the course of nature itself, and you are the intelligent soul that runs through that course. You are birds of beautiful feathers, perched on the body as on a tree. You are free of the three qualities common to every soul. You are beyond compare. Through your spirit in every created thing you pervade the universe. You are golden eagles. You are the essence into which all things disappear. You are free from error and you know no decay. Your beaks are beautiful; they would never strike unjustly, and they are victorious in every encounter. Over time itself you surely prevail. Having created the sun, you weave the wondrous cloth of the year with the white thread of the day and the black thread of the night, and with the cloth so woven you have laid down two courses of action, one belonging to the gods and one to the ancestors. The bird of life is seized by time, which stands for the strength of the infinite soul, and you set her free and deliver her to great happiness. Those who are sunk in deep ignorance, for as long as the delusions of their senses hold them, suppose that you have form, you who are independent of the attributes of matter. Three hundred and sixty cows, which are the three hundred and sixty days, bear one calf between them, and the calf is the year. That calf is the creator and the destroyer of all. Seekers of truth, following their different roads, draw the milk of true knowledge with its help. Ashvins, you are the makers of that calf.
“The year is the nave of a wheel, and fixed to it are seven hundred and twenty spokes, as many as the days and the nights. The rim of this wheel is the twelve months, and it has no end. The wheel is full of delusions and knows no decay. It works on all creatures, those of this world and those of the other. Ashvins, this wheel of time is set in motion by you. The wheel of time, taken as the year, has a nave that is the six seasons. Twelve spokes are fixed to that nave, and they are the twelve signs of the zodiac. This wheel of time brings out the fruits of the acts of all things, and the deities who preside over time live within it. I am subject to its painful power. Ashvins, free me from that wheel of time. Ashvins, you are this universe of the five elements. You are the things that are enjoyed in this world and in the other. Make me independent of the five elements. Though you are the Supreme Brahma, you move over the earth in forms, enjoying the delights that the senses afford. In the beginning you created the ten points of the universe. Then you set the sun and the sky above. The rishis perform their sacrifices according to the course of that same sun, and gods and men perform theirs according to what has been appointed for them, and enjoy the fruits of those acts. Mixing the three colors, you produced all the objects of sight. From those objects the universe has sprung, and on it gods and men go about their occupations, and with them every creature that has life. Ashvins, I adore you. I adore the sky too, which is your handiwork. You ordain the fruits of all acts, and even the gods are bound by them. You yourselves are free from the fruits of your own acts. You are the parents of all. As male and as female it is you who swallow the food that afterward becomes the fluid that creates life, and becomes blood. The newborn infant sucks at its mother’s breast, and it is you who take the shape of that infant. Ashvins, grant me my sight, so that I may protect my life.”
The twin Ashvins came at his call. “We are satisfied,” they said. “Here is a cake for you. Take it and eat it.” He was starving, he was blind, and two gods were offering him food. Upamanyu answered them from the well. “Your words have never proved untrue, Ashvins. But I dare not take this cake without first offering it to my teacher.” The Ashvins told him something about that teacher. “Your teacher once called on us, long before you did. We gave him a cake like this one, and he took it without offering it to his own master. Do what your teacher did.” Upamanyu refused a second time. “Ashvins, I ask your pardon. Without offering it to my teacher I dare not eat this cake.” Then the Ashvins said, “We are pleased with this devotion of yours to your teacher. Your master’s teeth are of black iron. Yours shall be of gold. Your sight will be restored to you, and good fortune will be yours.” At their word his eyes cleared. He went to his teacher, saluted him and told him all of it, and Dhaumya was well pleased. “You will prosper just as the Ashvins have said. All the Vedas will shine in you, and all the Dharmashastras.” That was the trial of Upamanyu.
Then came the turn of Veda, the last of Ayoda Dhaumya’s three. His teacher said to him one day, “Veda, my child, stay some time in my house and serve your teacher. It will be to your profit.” Veda agreed, and he stayed a long time in his teacher’s household with nothing on his mind except serving him. Like an ox under the loads its master lays on it, he bore heat and cold, hunger and thirst, at all hours and without a murmur. Before very long his teacher was satisfied, and out of that satisfaction Veda received good fortune and knowledge of all things. That was the trial of Veda, and it left its mark on him, as the pupils he took in his own turn would find.
A key to reading this (iron teeth, golden teeth): The Ashvins measure the pupil against his teacher. By their account Dhaumya once called on them and ate the cake they gave him without offering it to his own master; Upamanyu, blind at the bottom of a well, twice refuses to do the same. Pleased with that devotion, they tell him that his master’s teeth are of black iron and that his own will be of gold. All through the trial the pupil comes home as well fed as the evening before, and each evening the teacher closes one more door. The hymn is given as words of the Rig Veda, and its pictures are worth holding on to: a year that is a calf born of three hundred and sixty cows, and time as a wheel whose seven hundred and twenty spokes are the days and nights. A wheel turns up once more in this same section, when Uttanka sees one in the world of the snakes, turned by six boys.
The gist: Sent to herd the cows, Upamanyu is cut off by his teacher from his alms, from a second round of begging, from the milk, and from the froth the calves let fall, and he accepts each ruling. Starving, he eats arka leaves, goes blind and falls into a well. On his teacher’s word he praises the twin Ashvins in the words of the Rig Veda, twice refuses their cake because he cannot first offer it to his teacher, and gets his sight back with the promise that his teacher’s teeth are black iron and his own will be gold. The third pupil, Veda, serves like an ox under its loads and receives good fortune and knowledge of all things.
Veda’s pupil Uttanka: a teacher’s wife who wants the earrings of King Paushya’s queen by the fourth day, a man on a bull who offers dung on the road, and a queen who cannot be seen by anyone unclean
When his studies were complete Veda took his teacher’s leave, left Dhaumya’s house and entered the life of a householder. In his own home he came to have three pupils, and he never told them to do any work, and never demanded that they obey his commands without question. He had known a great deal of misery while he lived in his own teacher’s family, and he had no wish to treat anyone under him with that severity. After some time two men of the Kshatriya order, the order that rules, Janamejaya and Paushya, both of them kings, came to his house and appointed the Brahmin Veda their upadhyaya, the teacher who would guide them in sacred things. Then came a day when Veda had to leave home on some business connected with a sacrifice, and he put one of his pupils, Uttanka, in charge of the household. “Uttanka,” he said, “whatever has to be done in my house, see that it is done, and neglect nothing.” With those orders given, he set out on his journey.
Uttanka kept his teacher’s instruction always in mind and took up his duties in the house. While he was living there the women of the household came to him in a body. “Uttanka, your teacher’s wife is in her season, the time when lying with her husband might bear fruit. The teacher is away. Stand in his place, then, and do what is needed.” Uttanka had been told to neglect nothing, and he answered the women plainly. “It is not proper for me to do this at the bidding of women. My teacher gave me no order to do anything that is improper.” After a while Veda came back from his journey. He learned everything that had happened in his absence, and he was well pleased. “Uttanka, my child, what favor shall I do you? You have served me as a pupil should, and the friendship between us has grown because of it. I give you leave to go. Go, and may your wishes be fulfilled.”
Uttanka would not go empty-handed. A pupil who has finished his studies owes his teacher a parting gift, and he meant to pay it. “Let me do something that you wish,” he said. “There is a saying: ‘When one man gives instruction contrary to usage and another receives it contrary to usage, one of the two dies, and enmity springs up between them.’ You have given me leave to depart, and I want to bring you the fee that is due to a teacher.” “Uttanka, my child, wait a while,” said Veda. Some time later Uttanka asked again. “Command me. Tell me what you would like for your fee, and I will bring it.” “My dear Uttanka,” the teacher said, “you have told me often that you want to bring something in acknowledgment of the instruction you have had. Go in, then, and ask your teacher’s wife what you are to bring. Bring whatever she tells you.” So Uttanka went to her. “Madam, I have my master’s leave to go home, and I want to bring you something that will please you, as the fee for the instruction I have received, so that I do not leave here as his debtor. Please tell me what I am to bring.” She had her answer ready. “Go to King Paushya and beg of him the pair of earrings his queen wears, and bring them here. The fourth day from today is a sacred day, and I wish to appear before the Brahmins who will dine at my house wearing those earrings. See that it is done, Uttanka. If you succeed, good fortune will attend you. If you fail, what good can you expect?”
With that command on him Uttanka took the road, and he had until the fourth day. As he walked he saw a bull of extraordinary size, and on its back a man of uncommon stature, and the man spoke to him. “Eat the dung of this bull.” Uttanka was unwilling to do it. The man spoke again. “Eat it, Uttanka, and do not examine it. Your master ate it before you.” At that Uttanka agreed. He ate the dung of that bull and drank its urine, got up respectfully, washed his hands and his mouth, and went on to where King Paushya was. He reached the palace and saw Paushya on his throne. He approached, greeted the king by pronouncing blessings over him, and said, “I have come to you as a petitioner.” Paushya returned his greeting. “Sir, what shall I do for you?” “I have come to beg a pair of earrings from you, as a present for my teacher,” Uttanka said. “It would be right for you to give me the earrings your queen wears.”
“Go into the women’s apartments, Uttanka, where the queen is,” said Paushya, “and ask her for them.” Uttanka went in, and he could not find the queen anywhere. He came back out to the king and he was angry. “It is not proper that you should treat me with deceit. Your queen is not in the inner apartments. I looked, and I could not find her.” Paushya thought about this for a moment before he answered. “Think back carefully, sir, and ask yourself whether you are in a state of defilement from contact with the leavings of a meal. My queen is a chaste wife. No one who is impure from the leavings of food is able to see her, and she does not appear before anyone who is defiled.” Uttanka thought back over the road, and he admitted it. “Yes, that must be it. I was in a hurry, and I washed after eating while I was still on my feet.” “There is the transgression,” said the king. “A man is not properly purified while he stands, nor while he walks along.” Uttanka agreed. He sat down with his face toward the east and washed his face, his hands and his feet thoroughly. Then, without making a sound, he sipped water three times, water free of scum and froth, and not warm, taking just enough to reach his stomach, and he wiped his face twice. After that he touched water to the openings of his senses, the eyes and the ears and the rest. When all of it was done he went into the women’s apartments once more, and this time he saw the queen.
The queen saw him as well, and she saluted him with respect. “Welcome, sir. Command me; what am I to do?” “It would be right for you to give me those earrings of yours,” Uttanka said. “I beg them as a present for my teacher.” The queen was highly pleased with the way he had conducted himself, and she judged that a petitioner so worthy of a gift could not be passed over. She took off her earrings and gave them to him, and with them she gave him a warning. “Takshaka, the king of the serpents, wants these earrings very badly. Carry them with the greatest care.” “Lady, have no fear,” said Uttanka. “Takshaka, chief of the serpents, is not able to overtake me.” He took his leave of her, went back into the presence of Paushya, and said, “Paushya, I am well content.”
A key to reading this (the rite of sipping, and a queen who is not there): The story gives the method of purification step by step: seated, facing east, the face and hands and feet washed, three silent sips of clean water that is not warm, the face wiped twice, and water touched to the openings of the senses. Paushya explains why the queen could not be found: a chaste wife cannot be seen by anyone made impure by the leavings of a meal, and Uttanka had washed in a hurry, on his feet, after what he ate on the road. Who the bull and its rider were, the story does not yet say. Uttanka himself will ask at the end, and his teacher will answer.
The gist: Veda, who was never harsh with his own pupils, becomes the guide of Janamejaya and Paushya and leaves Uttanka in charge of his house. Uttanka refuses the improper proposal of the women of the household and, when the teacher returns, insists on paying a teacher’s fee. The teacher’s wife asks for the earrings worn by King Paushya’s queen, to wear on a sacred day four days off. On the road a huge man on a huge bull has Uttanka eat the bull’s dung and drink its urine. At Paushya’s palace Uttanka cannot find the queen until he sits and purifies himself in the proper way; then she gives him the earrings with a warning that Takshaka, king of the serpents, wants them.
A hair in cold food and two curses, Takshaka’s theft in the shape of a naked beggar, a burrow opened by Indra’s thunderbolt, and two women in the world of the snakes weaving black thread and white
Paushya was not ready to let such a guest walk out of his hall. “A man fit to receive a gift comes along only at long intervals,” he said. “You are a guest with every qualification, and so I wish to perform a shraddha, the rite for my ancestors, and feed you at it. Stay a little while.” “Yes, I will stay,” said Uttanka, “and I ask that the clean food you have ready be brought in soon.” The king agreed and entertained him with every proper form. Then the food was set down in front of Uttanka, and he saw that there was hair in it, and that it was cold, and he judged it unclean. He turned on his host. “You give me unclean food. For that you shall lose your sight.” Paushya answered him in kind. “And you call clean food unclean. For that you shall be without children.” Uttanka would not have it. “It is not right for you to offer me unclean food and then curse me in return. Look at it. Let your own eyes be the proof.” Paushya looked at the food he was accused of serving, and he satisfied himself that it was unclean: cold, with hair mixed into it, the work of a woman who had cooked with her hair unbraided. At once he set about soothing the rishi. “Sir, the food placed before you is cold, and there is hair in it. It was prepared without enough care. I beg you to pardon me. Do not let me go blind.”
“What I say must come to pass,” Uttanka answered. “You will go blind. You may, however, recover your sight before long. Now grant in your turn that your curse does not take effect on me.” Paushya’s answer was the plainest account a king could give of himself. “I am unable to take my curse back, for even now my anger has not been appeased. There is something you do not know. A Brahmin’s heart is soft as fresh-churned butter, even though his words carry a razor’s sharp edge. With the Kshatriya it is the other way around. His words are soft as fresh-churned butter, and his heart is like a sharp-edged tool. That being so, the hardness of my heart leaves me unable to undo my curse. Go your own way.” Uttanka had an answer for him, and it was a matter of exact wording. “I showed you that the food offered to me was unclean, and a moment ago you were soothing me for it. Besides, you said at the start that I would be childless because I called clean food unclean. The food was truly unclean, and so your curse cannot touch me. Of this I am sure.” With that he left the palace, carrying the earrings.
On the road he noticed a naked, idle beggar coming toward him, a figure that was sometimes in view and sometimes gone. Uttanka set the earrings down on the ground and went to find water. The beggar came quickly to the spot, picked the earrings up and ran. Uttanka finished his ablutions and purified himself, and he bowed reverently to the gods and to his teachers, and only then did he go after the thief, as fast as he could run. He caught up with him after a hard chase and seized him by force, and at that instant the figure in his grip gave up the shape of a beggar and took its real form. It was Takshaka. The serpent slid quickly into a large hole that lay open in the ground, and through that hole he made his way home, down to the region of the serpents.
Uttanka remembered the queen’s warning then. He went after the serpent and began to dig the hole open with a stick, and he made very little progress. Indra, king of the gods, saw his distress and sent his thunderbolt, the Vajra, to help him. The thunderbolt entered the stick and tore the hole wide, and Uttanka went down into it behind the bolt. Below he found the world of the serpents spread out before him, boundless in extent, filled with hundreds of palaces and elegant mansions with turrets and domes and gateways, and with wonderful grounds for games and entertainments of every kind. He had come to ask for something, and so he praised the serpents in verses. “Serpents, subjects of King Airavata, splendid in battle, who shower weapons on the field like lightning-charged clouds driven by the winds! Handsome and of many forms, decked with earrings of many colors, children of Airavata, you shine like the sun in the sky. On the northern banks of the Ganga are many dwellings of serpents, and there I constantly adore the great serpents. Who except Airavata would wish to move in the burning rays of the sun? When Dhritarashtra, the brother of Airavata, goes out, twenty-eight thousand and eight serpents follow him as his attendants. You who move near him and you who stay far from him, I adore all of you who have Airavata for your elder brother. And you too I adore, Takshaka, to obtain the earrings, you who once lived in Kurukshetra and in the forest of Khandava. Takshaka and Ashvasena, you are constant companions, living in Kurukshetra on the banks of the Ikshumati. I adore the renowned Shrutasena as well, the younger brother of Takshaka, who stayed at the holy place called Mahadyumna in the hope of winning the chiefship of the serpents.”
The Brahmin rishi had saluted the chief serpents with all of this, and the earrings were not given back. He grew very thoughtful. Since adoring the serpents had gained him nothing, he looked about him, and he saw two women at a loom, weaving a piece of cloth with a fine shuttle, and the threads in the loom were black and white. He saw a wheel with twelve spokes, and six boys turning it. And he saw a man with a handsome horse. To these he addressed mantras. “This wheel, whose rim is marked with twenty-four divisions for as many changes of the moon, is fitted with three hundred spokes, and six boys, the seasons, keep it in continual motion. These maidens, who are universal nature, weave without pause a cloth of black threads and white, and so they bring into being the many worlds and the beings who live in them. Wielder of the thunder, protector of the universe, killer of Vritra and Namuchi, you who wear the black cloth and display truth and untruth in the universe, you whose mount is the horse that was received from the depths of the ocean and is only another form of Agni, the god of fire: I bow to you, supreme Lord, Lord of the three worlds, Purandara.”
The man with the horse answered him. “Your adoration has pleased me. What good shall I do you?” “Let the serpents be brought under my control,” said Uttanka. “Blow into this horse,” the man said. Uttanka blew into the horse, and from every opening of its body there burst flames of fire and smoke, and the whole region of the Nagas, the serpent people, was about to be burned up. Takshaka, astonished beyond measure and terrified by the heat of that fire, came hurrying out of his dwelling with the earrings in his hands. “Sir, please, take the earrings back.” Uttanka took them. Then a new worry seized him. “This is the very day, the sacred day of my teacher’s wife, and I am far away. How can I show her my regard now?” The man saw him standing there in his anxiety and spoke again. “Ride this horse, Uttanka. He will carry you to your master’s house in a moment.” Uttanka agreed and mounted, and very soon he was at his teacher’s door.
That morning his teacher’s wife had bathed and was sitting to dress her hair, and as she dressed it she was thinking of the curse she would speak on Uttanka if he did not return in time. He walked in while she was still thinking of it, paid his respects to her, and presented the earrings. “Uttanka,” she said, “you have arrived at the proper time and at the proper place. Welcome, my child. You are innocent, and so I do not curse you. Good fortune lies before you. May your wishes be crowned with success.”
A key to reading this (three sights in the world of the snakes): When praise fails to bring the earrings back, Uttanka sees three things, and they are a riddle whose answer his teacher will give in the next scene: two women at a loom, a twelve-spoked wheel turned by six boys, and a man with a horse. Uttanka’s own mantras already read part of it: the six boys are the seasons, the weavers are universal nature, and the man is addressed as the wielder of the thunder, Purandara. The wheel of his mantras has twenty-four divisions and three hundred spokes, while the wheel he sees has twelve. The Dhritarashtra of his first hymn is a serpent, the brother of Airavata, who goes out with twenty-eight thousand and eight serpents behind him.
The gist: Finding cold food with hair in it at Paushya’s table, Uttanka curses the king with blindness and is cursed in return with childlessness. The food proves unclean; the Kshatriya, whose heart is hard, cannot take his curse back; and Uttanka declares that a curse resting on a false charge cannot touch him. On the road Takshaka, in the shape of a naked beggar, steals the earrings and escapes down a hole. Indra’s thunderbolt enters Uttanka’s stick and opens the way. In the serpent world Uttanka praises Airavata’s people and Takshaka without result, then sees two women weaving, a wheel turned by six boys, and a man with a horse. At his mantras the man has him blow into the horse, fire threatens the Naga realm, Takshaka returns the earrings, and the same horse carries Uttanka to his teacher’s house on the sacred day itself.
The teacher’s answers: Dhata and Vidhata, the wheel of six seasons, Parjanya and Agni, and the dung that was amrita; then Uttanka stands in the court at Hastinapura and tells Janamejaya that Takshaka killed his father
Then Uttanka went in to his teacher. “You are welcome,” said Veda. “What kept you away so long?” Uttanka had come back with the earrings and with a head full of things he could not explain, and he laid them before his teacher one after another. “Sir, while I was carrying out this errand, Takshaka, the king of the serpents, put himself in my way, and so I had to go down into the region of the Nagas. There I saw two maidens sitting at a loom, weaving a cloth with black threads and white. What is that? There too I saw a wheel with twelve spokes, and six boys who turned it without stopping. What does that mean? Who is the man I saw there? And what is the horse of extraordinary size that I saw with him? And before any of this, when I was on the road, I saw a bull with a man mounted on it, and he spoke to me kindly. ‘Uttanka,’ he said, ‘eat the dung of this bull, which your master also ate.’ So I ate the dung of that bull, as he told me. Who is he? I want to understand all of it, and I want to hear it from you.”
His teacher answered him point by point. “The two maidens you saw are Dhata and Vidhata. The black threads and the white are night and day. The wheel of twelve spokes that the six boys turn is the year, with its six seasons. The man is Parjanya, the god of rain, and the horse is Agni, the god of fire. The bull you saw on the road is Airavata, the king of elephants, and the man mounted on him is Indra. The dung of that bull, which you ate, was amrita, the nectar that keeps death away. It is certainly because of that last thing that you did not meet your death in the region of the Nagas. Indra is my friend, and in his mercy he showed you favor. That is why you have come back safe, with the earrings on you. And now, my gentle Uttanka, I give you leave to go. Good fortune will be yours.”
Uttanka had his master’s leave, and he did not go home. Anger was driving him. He had made up his mind to be avenged on Takshaka, and he set out for Hastinapura, where a king sat whose father that same serpent had killed. The Brahmin reached the city quickly and went to wait on King Janamejaya, who had returned some time before, victorious, from Takshashila. He saw the conquering king seated with his ministers around him on every side. He pronounced the benedictions over him in their proper form, waited for the right moment, and then spoke in words of correct accent and pleasing sound. What those words carried was a rebuke. “How is it, Janamejaya, that you, a king above other kings, pass your time like a child, when there is another matter that urgently demands your attention?”
Sauti said: The king, spoken to in this way, saluted his visitor and answered without taking offense. “In caring for these subjects of mine I carry out the duties of my noble order. Tell me what this business is that I must do, the business that has brought you here.” Uttanka, a Brahmin known beyond all others for his good deeds, gave the large-hearted king his answer. “The business that demands your attention is your own. So please, see to it. Your father was robbed of his life by Takshaka. Avenge your father’s death on that vile serpent. The time has come, I think, for the act of vengeance that fate has ordained. Go, then, and avenge the death of your great-hearted father, who was bitten without cause by that vile serpent and returned to the five elements like a tree struck by lightning. Takshaka, the lowest of the serpent race, drunk on his own power, did a thing for which there was no need when he bit the king, your godlike father, the guardian of a line of royal sages. Wicked in all he does, he even made Kashyapa, the prince of physicians, turn back when Kashyapa was on his way to save your father. You ought to burn that wretch in the blazing fire of a snake sacrifice. Give the order for the sacrifice at once. That is how you can avenge your father’s death. And you will have done me a very great favor as well, for that malignant creature once put himself in the way of my business too, when I was traveling on my teacher’s account.”
Sauti went on: When the king had heard these words he was filled with rage against Takshaka. Uttanka’s speech fed his anger the way clarified butter feeds a sacrificial fire. Grief came over him as well. There, with Uttanka standing by, he turned to his ministers and asked them for every particular of how his father had gone to the world of the blessed. And when he had heard the whole of it, all the circumstances of his father’s death, from Uttanka’s own lips, pain and sorrow overcame him, and the thought of a fire for serpents had been set before a king who had the power to light one.
A key to reading this (a riddle answered, and a story unlocked): The teacher’s reply names every figure in Uttanka’s journey: the weavers Dhata and Vidhata, the threads that are night and day, the wheel of the year with its six seasons, Parjanya and the horse that is Agni, and Indra on Airavata, whose dung was amrita. Two things in it are left standing side by side. Uttanka hailed the man with the horse as the wielder of the thunder, and his teacher calls that man Parjanya and gives the name Indra to the rider on the road. The bull is named as Airavata, the king of elephants, and in Uttanka’s hymn the serpents too are the subjects of a King Airavata. The section has been heading all along for the court at Hastinapura, where Janamejaya is told plainly that Takshaka killed his father and turned back the physician Kashyapa, and Uttanka asks him for a snake sacrifice.
The gist: Veda explains what Uttanka saw: the weaving maidens are Dhata and Vidhata, the threads night and day, the wheel the year of six seasons, the man Parjanya, the horse Agni, the bull Airavata with Indra on his back, and the dung amrita, which is why Uttanka did not die among the Nagas. Dismissed with a blessing, Uttanka goes to Hastinapura to be avenged on Takshaka. Before the king and his ministers he tells Janamejaya that he is passing his time like a child while his father’s death goes unavenged, that Takshaka bit his father without cause and turned back the physician Kashyapa, and that the serpent should burn in a snake sacrifice. The king, kindled like a fire fed with butter, asks his ministers how his father died, hears it all from Uttanka, and is overcome with grief. The Paushya section ends.
Shaunaka takes his seat and asks for the line of Bhrigu: a Rakshasa at the door of a pregnant woman, and a question put to the fire that could be answered only with the truth
The story of Uttanka was told, and the teller stood before his listeners in the forest of Naimisha. He was Ugrashrava Sauti, the son of Lomaharshana, and he had studied the Puranas, the ancient records, with such close devotion that he knew them through and through. Around him went on the twelve-year sacrifice of Shaunaka, whom the others called Kulapati, the head of their household of sages. Sauti joined his palms and spoke to the rishis who were in attendance there. “I have described to you in full the history of Uttanka,” he said, “and it is one of the causes of King Janamejaya’s snake sacrifice. What do you wish to hear now? What shall I tell you?” The holy men had more than one request in mind, and they also had a master. “Sauti, we will ask you about the things we are eager to hear, and you will tell us the tales one by one. But Shaunaka, our revered master, is at this moment attending in the chamber of the holy fire. He knows the divine stories that are told of the gods and the Asuras. He knows well the histories of men, of serpents and of Gandharvas. And in this sacrifice that learned Brahmin is the chief. He is able and faithful to his vows. He is wise, a master of the Shastras and of the Aranyaka, a speaker of truth and a lover of peace, a man who disciplines his own flesh and keeps the penances as the authorities lay them down. All of us respect him. It is right, then, that we wait for him. When he is seated on the seat we hold in such honor, you will answer whatever that great Brahmin asks of you.” “So be it,” said Sauti. “When the master has taken his seat and questions me, I will tell sacred stories on many subjects.”
They waited. Shaunaka did not hurry the duties that kept him. He finished every one of them in its proper order, pleasing the gods with prayers and the ancestors with offerings of water, and only then did he come back to the place of sacrifice. There the ascetics, men of strict vows, were sitting at their ease with Sauti seated before them. Shaunaka took his own place in the midst of the officiating priests and the Sadhyas, who were all in their seats, and when he was settled he spoke to the storyteller. “Child, your father once read the whole of the Puranas, and he read the Bharata with Krishna Dvaipayana himself. Have you made them your study too? Those ancient records hold stories worth the hearing, and the history of the first generations of the wise, and we heard all of it recited by your father. What I wish to hear first is the history of the line of Bhrigu. Tell that history, and we will listen to you closely.” He was asking, before anything else, for the story of his own house.
Sauti began by saying where his knowledge came from. “Everything that the great Brahmins of old studied and handed on, Vaishampayana among them, I have acquired. Everything my father studied, I have acquired. Hear, then, Shaunaka, what belongs to the exalted line of Bhrigu, which is your own, a line that Indra and all the gods revere, and the companies of rishis, and the Maruts, the gods of the wind. I will first tell the story of this family properly, as it is told in the Puranas. The great and blessed Bhrigu, we are told, was brought forth by the self-existent Brahma from the fire at the sacrifice of Varuna. Bhrigu had a son named Chyavana, whom he dearly loved. To Chyavana was born a virtuous son called Pramati. Pramati had a son named Ruru, by Ghritachi, the dancer of heaven. And to Ruru, by his wife Pramadvara, was born a son whose name was Shunaka. He, Shaunaka, was your great ancestor, a man of the highest virtue in all his ways. He was devoted to asceticism and widely renowned, learned in the law, and eminent among those who know the Vedas. He was virtuous and truthful, and he kept his eating under strict rule.” Five generations had gone by in as many breaths, and Shaunaka stopped him at the second. “Sauti, why was that famous son of Bhrigu given the name Chyavana? Tell me all of it.”
Bhrigu, Sauti said, had a wife named Puloma, and he loved her dearly. She was carrying his child. One day, while the virtuous and chaste Puloma was in that condition, Bhrigu, a great man among those who are true to their religion, left her at home and went out to bathe. That was when the Rakshasa came to Bhrigu’s dwelling, a creature of the wild and violent kind, and his name too was Puloma. He walked into the rishi’s home and saw Bhrigu’s wife, a woman in whom no fault could be found, and at the sight of her he was filled with lust and lost his senses. The beautiful Puloma received him as a guest and set before him the roots and fruits of the forest. The Rakshasa burned with desire as he looked at her. He was delighted, and he made up his mind to carry away a woman who was blameless in every respect. “My purpose is accomplished,” he said to himself. There was an old claim behind that hunger. Her own father had once betrothed this woman of the lovely smile to that very Rakshasa, and had afterward given her to Bhrigu with all the proper rites. That wound had festered deep in the Rakshasa’s mind for a long time, and now, with the husband away and the wife alone, he judged that the moment for carrying her off had come.
Then the Rakshasa saw the room where the sacrificial fire was kept, burning bright, and he turned to the flame and put his case to it. “Tell me, Agni, whose wife this woman rightfully is. You are the mouth of the gods, and so you are bound to answer my question. This fair woman was first accepted by me as my wife, and afterward her father gave her to the false Bhrigu. Tell me truly whether she can be counted the wife of Bhrigu, for I have found her alone and I have resolved to take her from this hermitage by force. My heart burns with rage when I think that Bhrigu has possession of this slender-waisted woman, who was betrothed first to me.” He asked the blazing god again and again whether the woman was Bhrigu’s wife, and the god was afraid to answer. The Rakshasa pressed him. “God of fire, you live always inside every creature, as the witness of the good and the evil that each one does. Answer my question truly. Has Bhrigu not taken for himself the woman I chose as my wife? Declare truly, then, whether she is mine by first choice. When you have answered whether she is the wife of Bhrigu, I will carry her away from this hermitage before your very eyes. So answer me truly.” The god of the seven flames heard him and was in great distress. He was afraid to tell a lie, and he was just as afraid of Bhrigu’s curse. At last he answered, and the words came out of him slowly. “This Puloma was indeed first chosen by you, Rakshasa. You never took her with holy rites and invocations. Her father gave this woman of wide renown to Bhrigu as a gift, hoping for a blessing. She was never given to you. The rishi Bhrigu made her his wife in due form, with the rites of the Veda, and he did it in my presence. This is she. I know her. I dare not speak a falsehood, Rakshasa, for falsehood is never respected in this world.”
A key to reading this (two Pulomas, and why the fire is afraid): One name belongs to two characters here: Puloma, the wife of Bhrigu, and Puloma, the Rakshasa to whom her father had first betrothed her. The story hangs on that first promise, which was never sealed with rites. The Rakshasa himself says why the fire must answer. Agni is the mouth of the gods, and he lives inside every creature as the witness of its merits and demerits. So the god stands between two fears, the fear of telling a lie and the fear of Bhrigu’s curse, and he tells the truth. The next scene is what the truth costs him.
The gist: With Uttanka’s tale done, the sages wait for Shaunaka, who returns from the chamber of the holy fire and asks first for the history of his own house, the line of Bhrigu. Sauti recites the descent: Bhrigu, brought forth from the fire at Varuna’s sacrifice, then Chyavana, Pramati, Ruru and Shunaka. Asked how Chyavana got his name, he begins: the Rakshasa Puloma, to whom the girl had once been betrothed by her father, finds Bhrigu’s pregnant wife alone, resolves to carry her off, and demands that the sacrificial fire declare whose wife she is. Agni, afraid of a lie and afraid of the rishi’s curse, at last tells the truth: she was given to Bhrigu and married to him with Vedic rites, in the fire’s own presence.
A child falls from the womb as a boar carries off his mother, a river is born from a mother’s tears, and Bhrigu’s curse on the fire stops every sacrifice in the three worlds
The fire had spoken. The Rakshasa had said that once he had his answer he would carry the woman off before the fire’s very eyes, and now he did it. He took the form of a boar, seized the woman, and carried her off with the speed of the wind, with the speed of thought itself. Then the child of Bhrigu, lying in his mother’s body, was enraged by that violence, and he dropped from her womb. For that fall he was given the name Chyavana. The Rakshasa saw the infant drop, and the infant shone like the sun. His grip on the woman came loose. He fell down, and in an instant he was ashes. The beautiful Puloma, half out of her mind with grief, picked up her child, Chyavana, the son of Bhrigu, and walked away. She was weeping as she went, and Brahma himself, the Grandfather of all, saw her: the faultless wife of his own son, in tears, holding fast to her child. He comforted her. The tears that rolled from her eyes ran together into a great river, and the river began to follow the footsteps of the wife of the great ascetic Bhrigu. The Grandfather of the worlds watched that river keep to the path his son’s wife had taken, and he gave it a name himself. He called it Vadhusara. It flows past the hermitage of Chyavana. So Chyavana was born, the son of Bhrigu, who would be a man of great ascetic power, and his father had yet to come home and hear how.
Bhrigu came back from his bath and saw his child, Chyavana, and the child’s beautiful mother, and he was in a rage before he had the whole of it. “Who made you known to that Rakshasa, the one who resolved to carry you off? You of the lovely smile, he could not have known you for my wife. Tell me who it was that told him, so that I may curse that one in my anger.” Puloma told him. “It was Agni who identified me to the Rakshasa. Then the Rakshasa carried me away, and I cried out like the kurari, the osprey hen. It was only the fierce splendor of this son of yours that rescued me. The Rakshasa saw the infant and let me go, and he himself fell to the ground and was turned to ashes.” Bhrigu heard her account to the end, and his anger passed all bounds. In the full heat of it the rishi cursed the god of fire. “You shall eat of all things.”
The curse enraged Agni in his turn, and he answered the rishi to his face. “What is this rashness, Brahmin, that you have shown toward me? What wrong can be charged to me, when I was laboring to do justice and to speak the truth without favor? I was asked, and I gave the true answer. A witness who is questioned about a fact he knows, and who represents it as other than it is, ruins his ancestors and his descendants alike, to the seventh generation. And a man who knows every particular of a matter and, when he is asked, does not disclose what he knows is stained with guilt beyond all doubt. I could curse you as well. I hold Brahmins in high respect, and so I do not. You know these things already, Brahmin, and still I will say them, so listen. By my ascetic power I have multiplied myself, and I am present in many forms: in the places of the daily homa, the offering into the fire; at sacrifices that go on for years; in the places where holy rites such as marriage are performed; and at every other sacrifice. With the butter that is poured on my flame as the Vedas enjoin, the gods and the ancestors are satisfied. The gods are the waters, and the ancestors too are the waters. The gods have an equal right with the ancestors to the sacrifices called Darsha and Purnamasa. So the gods are the ancestors, and the ancestors are the gods. They are one and the same beings, worshiped together and also separately at the changes of the moon. What is poured on me, the gods and the ancestors eat. That is why I am called the mouth of the gods and of the ancestors. At the new moon the ancestors, and at the full moon the gods, are fed through my mouth, eating the clarified butter that is poured on me. I am their mouth. How am I to become an eater of all things, the clean and the unclean alike?”
Then Agni thought for a while, and he withdrew himself from every place. He left the places where the Brahmins made their daily homa. He left all the long sacrifices, the places of holy rites, and every other ceremony. The cries that go up with every offering, the Om and the Vashat, the Svadha and the Svaha, could no longer be raised over any flame, and all living creatures were in great distress at the loss of their fire. The rishis, in deep anxiety, went to the gods. “The three regions of the universe are thrown into confusion. Their sacrifices and ceremonies have stopped, because the fire is lost. Ordain what is to be done about it, so that no time is wasted.” Then the rishis and the gods went together into the presence of Brahma, and they laid before him the whole matter of the curse on Agni and the breaking off of every ceremony that had followed from it. “Agni has been cursed by Bhrigu for some reason. He is the mouth of the gods. He is the first to eat of what is offered in sacrifices, and he is the eater of the sacrificial butter. How is Agni to be brought down to the condition of one who eats all things without distinction?” The creator of the universe heard them out and summoned Agni before him. Agni too is a maker of all things, and as eternal as Brahma himself, and Brahma spoke to him in gentle words.
“You are the creator of the worlds, and you are their destroyer,” Brahma said. “You preserve the three worlds, and it is you who carry forward all sacrifices and ceremonies. Conduct yourself, then, so that the ceremonies are not interrupted. Eater of the sacrificial butter, why do you act so foolishly, you who are the Lord of all? You alone are always pure in the universe, and you are its support. You shall never, with your whole body, be reduced to the state of one who eats all things without distinction. God of flames, only the flame that is in your baser parts shall eat of all things alike. That body of yours which eats flesh, the one that lives in the stomachs of all carnivorous animals, shall also eat of all things without distinction. And as everything touched by the rays of the sun becomes pure, so shall everything be pure that is burned by your flames. Fire, you are the supreme energy, born of your own power. By that power, then, make the rishi’s curse come true. Go on receiving your own portion and the portion of the gods, offered at your mouth.” Agni gave the Grandfather his answer. “So be it.” He went away to carry out the command of the supreme Lord, and the gods and the rishis returned in delight to the places they had come from. The rishis began again to perform their ceremonies and sacrifices as before. The gods in heaven and all the creatures of the world rejoiced greatly, and Agni rejoiced too, for he was free of the prospect of sin. That is how Agni came to be cursed by Bhrigu in the days of old, and that is the ancient history of the Rakshasa Puloma’s destruction and of the birth of Chyavana. Chyavana’s own line was still to be told, down to the man who gave half his life away.
A key to reading this (a curse that is kept, and divided): Brahma tells Agni to make the rishi’s curse come true, and he sets its bounds. Agni will eat all things with a part of himself only: the flame in his baser parts, and the body of his that eats flesh in the stomachs of all carnivorous animals. To that Brahma joins a second ruling: as everything the sun’s rays touch becomes pure, so will everything that Agni’s flames burn. Agni’s own speech explains his title. Gods and ancestors alike eat what is poured on him, the ancestors at the new moon and the gods at the full, in the sacrifices called Darsha and Purnamasa, and so he is the mouth of both. All of this is the history of Shaunaka’s own family, for his ancestor Shunaka descends from Bhrigu.
The gist: With the fire’s answer given, the Rakshasa turns into a boar and carries Puloma off. Her unborn child drops from the womb in anger, which gives him the name Chyavana, and at the sight of him the Rakshasa falls and turns to ashes. Her tears become a river, which Brahma names Vadhusara. Bhrigu returns, learns that Agni identified his wife, and curses the fire to eat all things. Agni defends the duty of a witness, sets out why he is the mouth of the gods and the ancestors, and withdraws from every sacrifice. The three worlds are thrown into confusion, and the rishis and the gods go to Brahma. Brahma confines the curse to the flame in Agni’s baser parts and to the fire in the stomachs of flesh-eating animals, rules that whatever Agni burns becomes pure, and the sacrifices resume.
Pramadvara, an Apsara’s daughter left on a riverbank, a snake trodden on a few days before her wedding, and the half of his own life that Ruru hands to a messenger from heaven
Sauti went on with the line. Chyavana, the son of Bhrigu, fathered a son on his wife Sukanya, and that son was Pramati, a man who shone with energy. Pramati fathered a son named Ruru on Ghritachi. Ruru fathered a son named Shunaka on his wife Pramadvara. And now, Sauti told the Brahmin who had asked for all this, he would give the whole history of Ruru, a man of abundant spirit, in detail and from the beginning. Long ago there lived a great rishi called Sthulakesha, who had ascetic power and learning and a kind heart toward every creature. In those same days, it is said, Vishvavasu, the king of the Gandharvas, lay with Menaka, one of the Apsaras who dance in heaven. When her time came Menaka gave birth to an infant near the hermitage of Sthulakesha. She set the newborn down on the bank of the river, and with neither pity nor shame in her she went away. Sthulakesha, the rishi of great ascetic power, came upon the infant where it lay forsaken in a lonely stretch of the riverside. He saw that it was a girl, bright as the child of an immortal, a girl who seemed to blaze with beauty. The great Brahmin was filled with compassion. He picked her up and he raised her. The lovely child grew up in his holy dwelling, and the blessed, noble-minded rishi performed for her, one after another and in their proper order, all the ceremonies that sacred law ordains, beginning with the rite at birth. She came to surpass every woman in goodness, in beauty and in every quality, and for that the great rishi gave her the name Pramadvara.
Ruru, a pious man, saw Pramadvara in the hermitage of Sthulakesha, and the god of love pierced his heart. He let his father know of it through his friends, and Pramati, of Bhrigu’s line, went to Sthulakesha, whose name was known far and wide, and asked for the girl for his son. Her foster father betrothed the maiden Pramadvara to Ruru, and he fixed the wedding for the day when the star called Varga-Daivata, which is Purva-Phalguni, would be in the ascendant. Then, with only a few days left before that date, the girl was at play with her companions, and her time had come. Driven by fate, she stepped on a serpent she did not see, lying in its coil. The snake, itself pushed on to carry out what fate had willed, drove its poisoned fangs deep into the body of the unwary girl. She dropped to the ground senseless on the instant. The color went out of her, and every grace of her body with it. With her hair fallen loose she was a sight of grief to her companions and her friends. She who had been such a pleasure to look at became, in death, too painful to look at. And then the slender girl, lying on the ground like one asleep, overcome by the snake’s poison, grew more beautiful than she had been in life. Her foster father and the other holy ascetics who were there all saw her lying motionless on the earth with the splendor of a lotus. Then many well-known Brahmins came, full of compassion, and sat down around her. Svastyatreya came, and Mahajana, Kushika, Shankhamekhala, Uddalaka and Katha; the renowned Shveta came, and Bharadvaja, Kaunakutsya, Arshtishena and Gautama; Pramati came, and Pramati’s son Ruru, and other dwellers of the forest. They saw the girl lying dead on the ground, overcome by the poison of the snake that had bitten her, and all of them wept for pity. Ruru could not bear it. Stricken beyond measure, he left that circle of mourners.
While the Brahmins sat around the dead body of Pramadvara, Ruru went away into a deep wood, in agony, and wept aloud. Grief overwhelmed him, and he poured out lament after lament. Remembering his beloved Pramadvara, he spoke his sorrow into the empty forest. “Alas! That delicate girl lies on the bare ground, and my pain grows with the thought of it. What could be more terrible for us who love her? If I have given in charity, if I have performed acts of penance, if I have ever revered my elders, let the merit of those acts bring my beloved back to life! If from my birth I have governed my passions and kept to my vows, let the fair Pramadvara rise from the ground.” While he was lamenting like this for the loss of his bride, a messenger from heaven came to him in the forest. “The words you speak in your suffering, Ruru, can do nothing. One who belongs to this world and whose days have run out can never come back to life. The days of this poor child of a Gandharva and an Apsara have run out. So, my child, do not give your heart over to sorrow. Yet the great gods have provided beforehand a means of restoring her to life. If you comply with it, you may receive your Pramadvara back.” Ruru asked at once. “Messenger of heaven, what is it that the gods have ordained? Tell me all of it, so that I may hear it and comply. You must deliver me from this grief!” “Give up half of your own life to your bride,” said the messenger, “and then, Ruru of the line of Bhrigu, your Pramadvara shall rise from the ground.” Ruru did not weigh it. “Messenger of heaven, most gladly I offer half of my own life for my bride. Let my beloved rise up once more, in her own dress and in her lovable form.”
Then the king of the Gandharvas, who was Pramadvara’s father, and the messenger from heaven, both of them beings of excellent qualities, went to the god Dharma, the judge of the dead, and put the matter to him. “If it is your will, Dharmaraja, let the gentle Pramadvara, the betrothed wife of Ruru, who now lies dead, rise up with half of Ruru’s life.” Dharmaraja answered, “Messenger of the gods, if it is your wish, let Pramadvara, the betrothed wife of Ruru, rise up with half of Ruru’s life as her own.” The moment Dharmaraja had said it, the fair Pramadvara, with half of Ruru’s life now in her, rose as if from sleep. That gift had its price, and it was paid later: by giving up half of his own span to raise his bride, Ruru shortened his life. On an auspicious day their fathers gladly married the two of them with the proper rites, and the couple passed their days devoted to each other. Ruru had won a wife of a kind that is hard to find, beautiful and bright as the filaments of the lotus, and having won her he made a vow to destroy the race of serpents. Whenever he saw a snake a great anger filled him, and he always killed it with a weapon. One day Ruru walked into a wide forest, and there he saw an old serpent of the Dundubha kind lying stretched out on the ground. In anger he lifted his staff, a staff like the staff of Death himself, to kill it. Then the Dundubha spoke to him. “I have done you no harm, Brahmin. Why, then, will you kill me in anger?”
A key to reading this (half a life, and the root of a vow): The messenger says two things at once: one whose days have run out can never come back to life, and the gods have provided a means beforehand. The means is half of Ruru’s own span, and the telling adds that his life was shortened by the gift. From the snakebite comes Ruru’s vow to destroy the race of serpents, and the vow brings him, with his staff raised, to an old Dundubha that asks what harm it has done him. The Brahmins who sit around Pramadvara are named one by one: eleven of them, and then Pramati and his son Ruru.
The gist: From Chyavana and Sukanya came Pramati; from Pramati and Ghritachi came Ruru; from Ruru and Pramadvara came Shunaka. The rishi Sthulakesha finds the daughter of the Gandharva king Vishvavasu and the Apsara Menaka forsaken on a riverbank, raises her, and names her Pramadvara. Ruru falls in love with her and the wedding day is fixed, and a few days before it she steps on an unseen snake and dies. Named Brahmins sit weeping around her, and Ruru laments alone in the forest. A messenger from heaven tells him she can live if he gives up half his own life; he gives it at once, Dharmaraja consents, and Pramadvara rises. They marry, and Ruru vows to destroy the race of serpents, until one day he raises his staff over an old Dundubha, which asks him why.
A Dundubha argues that it is a snake in name only, the story of Khagama and the serpent made of grass, the sage Sahasrapat returns to his own form, and a teaching that a Brahmin must take no life
Ruru kept his staff raised and answered the creature on the ground. “My wife, who is as dear to me as life, was bitten by a snake. After that I took a dreadful vow: that I would kill every snake I came across. So I will strike you, and you will lose your life.” The Dundubha lay where it was and pleaded its case. “Brahmin, the snakes that bite men are of quite another kind. You ought not to kill Dundubhas, who are serpents only in name. We are subject to the same calamities as the other serpents and we share none of their good fortune; in sorrow we are the same as they are, and in joy we are different. Do not kill Dundubhas because of a mistake.” The rishi Ruru heard what the serpent said, and he saw that it was bewildered with fear, and though it was a snake, of the Dundubha kind, he did not kill it. He lowered the staff and spoke to comfort it. “Tell me fully, snake: who are you, that you have been changed into this shape?” “Ruru,” said the Dundubha, “I was a rishi once, and my name was Sahasrapat. It is by the curse of a Brahmin that I have been turned into a snake.” Ruru had two more questions for it. “For what were you cursed by a Brahmin in his wrath? And how long must you go on in this form?”
The Dundubha told him. “In former times I had a friend whose name was Khagama. He was hasty in his speech, and through his austerities he had come to possess spiritual power. One day, when he was busy with the Agnihotra, the fire sacrifice, I made a mock snake out of blades of grass and, for sport, tried to frighten him with it. He fainted on the spot. When he came back to his senses, that ascetic, who always told the truth and always kept his vows, was burning with anger, and he cried out, ‘You made a powerless mock snake to frighten me. By my curse you shall be turned into a serpent without venom yourself.’ I knew very well what the power of his penances was. My heart was shaking. I bent low before him with my palms joined and said, ‘Friend, I did this as a joke, to make you laugh. You ought to forgive me and take back your curse.’ He saw how deeply troubled I was, and he was moved. He was still breathing hot and hard when he answered me. ‘What I have said must come to pass. Listen to what I say now, and take it to heart. When Ruru appears, the pure son of Pramati, you shall be delivered from the curse the moment you see him.’ You are that very Ruru, and you are the son of Pramati. When I have my own form back, I will tell you something for your good.”
Then that Brahmin, a man of high renown, left the body of the snake and took back his own form and the brightness he had first had. He spoke to Ruru, whose power had no equal. “You who stand first among created beings, the highest virtue of man is to spare the lives of others. So a Brahmin should never take the life of any creature. A Brahmin should always be mild. This is the most sacred injunction of the Vedas. A Brahmin should be versed in the Vedas and the Vedangas, and he should inspire all creatures with belief in God. He should be kind to all creatures, truthful and forgiving, just as it is his highest duty to hold the Vedas in his memory. The duties of the Kshatriya are no duties of yours. To be stern, to wield the scepter and to rule the subjects properly are the duties of the Kshatriya. Listen, Ruru, to the account of the destruction of the snakes at the sacrifice of Janamejaya, in days of old, and of how those terrified creatures were delivered by Astika, a great Brahmin, deep in the lore of the Vedas and mighty in spiritual energy.” He had said enough to rouse Ruru and no more. “Why was King Janamejaya bent on destroying the serpents?” Ruru asked. “And why were they saved by the wise Astika, and how? I am eager to hear all of this in detail.” “Ruru,” the rishi answered, “the great history of Astika you will learn from the lips of Brahmins.” And having said it, he vanished.
Ruru ran this way and that in search of the rishi who was gone. He looked through all the woods and could not find him, and at last he fell to the ground, worn out. He turned the rishi’s words over and over in his mind, and they threw him into such confusion that for a while he seemed to have lost his senses. When he came to himself he went home and asked his father to tell him the history that had been named and withheld, and his father, being asked, told him the whole of it: the story of Astika, and of a king’s sacrifice of snakes.
A key to reading this (a story inside a story, and the bridge to Astika): The Dundubha answers Ruru’s vow with an argument: the snakes that bite men are of another kind, and Dundubhas are serpents only in name, sharing the calamities of other snakes and none of their good fortune. Khagama’s tale is that of a curse grown out of a joke, and the curse was made to end at the sight of the very Ruru who has come to kill. Sahasrapat’s teaching closes the Pauloma section: a Brahmin is to be mild, truthful and forgiving and to take no life, and sternness and the scepter are the duties of the Kshatriya. Then he names the story that comes next, the destruction of the snakes at Janamejaya’s sacrifice and their rescue by Astika, and leaves Ruru to hear it from Brahmins. Ruru goes home and hears it from his father.
The gist: Ruru states his vow. The Dundubha replies that the snakes that bite are of a different kind and that Dundubhas are serpents in name only, so he must not kill it by mistake. Ruru spares it and asks who it is: the rishi Sahasrapat, cursed by his friend Khagama to become a venomless serpent over a prank with a snake of grass, and promised release at the sight of Pramati’s son Ruru. He regains his own form, teaches that a Brahmin’s highest virtue is to spare life and that sternness belongs to the Kshatriya, names the destruction of the snakes at Janamejaya’s sacrifice and their deliverance by Astika, tells Ruru he will hear that history from Brahmins, and vanishes. Ruru goes home and asks his father, who tells him the story.
Source: the Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Adi Parva (Anukramanika, Parvasangraha, Paushya, Pauloma and Astika sub-books). This chapter follows K. M. Ganguli, sections 1 to 58, and this second part tells sections 3 to 12; the Gita Press Hindi edition numbers these chapters differently. Names, order, and events were checked against Ganguli’s complete translation. Dialogue and commentary are adapted. About the sources.
Based on: The Mahabharata, Vyasa (Gita Press, Gorakhpur)