Mahabharata · The Pilgrimage with Lomasha: from Agastya to Hanuman

About 80 minutes

Pilgrimage stories move the way rivers do: one runs into the next, and every bank has someone waiting on it. Lomasha leads the Pandavas from ford to ford, and at each one there is an old king, an angry sage, a stubborn boy, or a test of dharma. Agastya, who drinks the ocean and does not give it back. Bhagiratha, who stands a thousand years for the ashes of four generations. A sage with a horn on his head who has never seen a woman. Parashurama, whose axe was raised first against his mother. An anthill with two bright points in it that a princess pierces with thorns. A king who climbs onto the scales in place of a pigeon. A crooked boy who counts from one to thirteen at Janaka’s gate and drowns the court’s champion. And then the road climbs into the Himalaya, where Bhima, sent for a single flower, takes hold of a monkey’s tail in a plantain grove and cannot move it. The monkey is Hanuman, and he is Bhima’s elder brother.

The gods come to a hermitage door

Lomasha took up the story where the last evening had left it. The Kalakeyas were still out there. Every night they came up out of the sea, walked into the forest hermitages, and ate the sages they found praying; every dawn they slipped back beneath the water, and nobody on earth could say who was killing the Brahmins or why. The gods went to Vishnu. They stood before him with their palms joined and made their case the way frightened people do, by reminding the one they are asking of everything that depends on him. Through your favor, they said, the four kinds of creatures multiply: the ones born from wombs, from eggs, from sweat, and from seed. Multiplying, they feed the dwellers of heaven with offerings and feed their dead ancestors with water. Under your protection people live leaning on one another, without fear, and they increase. Now a danger has fallen on them. Brahmins are being killed in the night and we do not know by whom. If the Brahmins perish, the earth perishes with them, and if the earth ends, heaven ends too. Mighty-armed lord of the universe, act so that the worlds you guard do not come to an end.

Vishnu already knew. Hear it, he said, with untroubled minds. There is a demon host of exceptional ferocity called the Kalakeyas. Under Vritra they laid waste to the whole universe. When they saw Vritra fall to Indra of the thousand eyes, they saved their lives by going into the ocean, the house of Varuna, and from that water, among the sharks and crocodiles, they come out at night to kill the sages here, meaning to exterminate the people entirely. They cannot be killed while the sea shelters them. So think of a way to dry the sea. Who but Agastya could drink up the ocean? And unless the ocean is drunk, there is no other way to lay a hand on them.

So the gods asked leave of Brahma, who lives in the highest of all regions, and went to the hermitage of Agastya. They found him as they had hoped to find him: Varuna’s son, radiant, seated among sages the way Brahma sits among the gods, unmoving, looking less like a man than like a lifetime of pious acts piled into a single shape. They approached him and did what petitioners do before they ask; they praised him with his own history. When Nahusha oppressed the gods, you were their refuge, they said, and that thorn of the world was thrown down from the throne of heaven. When Vindhya, greatest of mountains, swelled in a jealous rage to rival the sun, it was your command he could not disobey, and he stopped growing. When darkness covered the world and death harried every creature, they found safety in you. Whenever peril surrounds us, you are the one we run to. That is why we have come to ask a boon, because you have never refused one.

A key to reading this (a name): The story keeps calling Agastya the son of Mitra and Varuna. In the tradition he and the sage Vasishtha were both born from the seed of those two gods, in a water jar, which is why Agastya is also called Kumbhaja, the jar-born. The Nahusha episode the gods mention, in which a mortal king who had climbed onto Indra’s throne was cursed down by Agastya, will be told in full later in this same Vana Parva, on the day a python takes hold of Bhima.

The gist: Vishnu names the night killers: Vritra’s surviving allies, hiding in the sea, untouchable until the sea is gone. The gods carry that impossible requirement to the one sage who has already humbled a king of heaven and a mountain.

Vindhya’s jealousy, and the sage who went south and never came back

Yudhishthira stopped him there. He wanted the mountain. Great sage, he said, tell us in full why Vindhya lost his senses to anger and suddenly began to grow.

Lomasha told it. Every day between his rising and his setting, the sun circled Meru, the golden mountain at the center of the world, the axis the heavens turn on. Vindhya watched this for a long time. One day he called up to the sun. You go around Meru every day, he said, and honor him with your circling. Maker of light, do the same for me. The sun answered him plainly: I do not circle that mountain by my own choice. The ones who built this universe assigned me that path. Vindhya heard only the refusal. He began to grow, all at once and with a purpose, meaning to rise until he blocked the road of the sun and the moon. The gods came to him in a body and tried to talk him down. He would not listen to them. So they went to the hermitage where Agastya sat in his austerities, the best of all who are devoted to virtue, and told him what the mountain was doing.

Foremost of Brahmins, they said, the king of hills has given way to rage. He is stopping the sun, the moon, and the courses of the stars. No one but you can prevent him. Make him stop. Agastya heard them out and went to the mountain, and he took his wife with him. He did not threaten. He stood at the foot of Vindhya and asked a favor, the way a traveler asks a landlord. Best of mountains, I need a road through you. I have business in the south, and I must go there. Until I come back, wait for me. When I have returned, king of mountains, grow as much as you please. Vindhya agreed. And from that day to this, Lomasha said, Varuna’s son has not come back from the south. That is the whole of it, king, since you asked: why Vindhya does not grow, and what the power of Agastya looks like. Now hear how the gods, once they had their boon from him, killed the Kalakeyas.

A key to reading this (a place): Meru is the golden mountain around which the sun travels, the pivot of the world in the old geography. Vindhya is the real range that divides northern India from the south. This story is the root of a whole tradition: Agastya as the sage of the south, who carried the Vedic culture across the Vindhyas and stayed, and the mountain that is still, as anyone can see, bowed.

The gist: Vindhya demands the honor Meru receives and, refused, grows to shut the sky. Agastya defeats him with a promise rather than force: wait until I return. He does not return.

The sea is drunk, and the Kalakeyas die on the dry bed

Agastya asked the gods what they had come for and what boon they wanted. They told him without ornament. Great one, drink up the ocean. Then we can kill the enemies of the gods, the Kalakeyas, together with every one of their followers. The sage said, so be it. What you ask, and what will bring great happiness to human beings, I will do. He set out at once for the lord of rivers, and the company that walked behind him would have emptied a heaven: sages ripened by long austerity, the gods themselves, and after them men, serpents, celestial singers, Yakshas, and Kinnaras, everyone who wanted to watch a thing that had never been done. They came together to the sea, and the sea was in full voice that day, roaring, dancing with its own waves, leaping with the wind, laughing in masses of foam, stumbling against its caves, crowded with every kind of shark, circled by flocks of birds.

At the shore Agastya turned to the gods and the gathered sages and said only this: I am going to drink the ocean, the house of the god of waters. Be quick about whatever preparations are yours to make. That was the whole speech. Then Mitra and Varuna’s unswerving son, filled with anger, began to drink, and all the worlds stood and watched. Indra and the gods, seeing the sea go down, were struck through with amazement and praised him aloud: you are our protector, and providence itself for men, and the maker of the worlds; by your favor the universe and its gods may yet be saved from ruin. Celestial musicians played on every side, celestial blossoms fell on him, and the great one, praised, went on drinking until the wide ocean stood empty.

The gods looked down at the bare floor of the sea and were glad past speech. They took up choice weapons of celestial forge and went down onto that bed with brave hearts to kill the demons. The Kalakeyas were strong, swift, and loud, and they could not stand against fleet, valorous attackers who came from heaven. They roared and fought back, terribly, for a moment. But they had already been half burned by the austerities of the sages whose selves were perfected, and though they tried to the last, the gods cut them down. Dead, decked in gold brooches and earrings and armlets, they lay across the seabed like palasa trees in full red flower. A few of the race survived; they tore open the goddess Earth and fled into the nether regions beneath her.

Then the gods praised the sage again, in many words, and asked him for the one thing they had not thought to ask for first. Mighty-armed one, by your favor men have received a great blessing, and the ruthless Kalakeyas are dead by your power. Now fill the sea, creator of beings; give back the water you drank. Agastya answered them, and there was no anger in it and no help either. That water I have digested. If you want the ocean filled, you must think of some other means. The gods were struck with wonder and with sadness in equal measure. They bowed to him, took leave of one another, and every creature went its way, and the gods went with Vishnu to Brahma and stood before him with joined hands, and began, again, to consult about filling the sea.

The gist: Agastya drinks the sea, the gods walk down onto its floor and slaughter the Kalakeyas, and the survivors burrow into the underworld. When the gods ask for the water back, the sage’s answer is plain and final: it is digested. Refilling the ocean will fall to someone else, and the story is about to tell whom.

Sagara’s sixty thousand sons, and the glance of Kapila

Brahma did not pretend the answer was quick. Go where your pleasure leads you, he told the gods. It will take a long course of time for the ocean to return to its former state. The occasion will be provided by the descendants of the great king Bhagiratha. The gods went home to wait for a day that lay generations off.

Yudhishthira wanted the generations. What was that occasion, he asked, and how did Bhagiratha’s ancestors bring it about, and how was the sea refilled by his doing? Brahmin whose only treasure is your religious practice, we wish to hear that king’s achievements in full. So Lomasha told him about Sagara.

In the line of Ikshvaku there was a king named Sagara, handsome, strong, a name dreaded by his enemies. He crushed the Haihaya and Talajangha clans, brought the whole warrior order under his hand, and ruled his kingdom, and he had no son. He had two wives, each proud of her beauty and her youth, a princess of Vidarbha and a princess of the royal house of Shibi, and with both of them he went up Mount Kailasa and gave himself to the harshest austerity, praying for a child. Long practice and the contemplation called yoga brought him the sight of the three-eyed god: the destroyer of the demon Tripura, the worker of blessings for all beings, the ever-existing lord who holds the Pinaka bow and carries the trident, the repository of peace and the ruler of everything fierce, the god of many forms, the husband of Uma. The moment Sagara saw the giver of boons he fell at his feet with both queens and asked for a son. Shiva was pleased, and the boon he gave had two edges. Lord of men, he said, considering the moment at which you have made this prayer, one of your two wives will bear sixty thousand sons, valorous and exceedingly proud, and they will all perish together. The other will bear a single valiant son who will carry on your line. Then Rudra vanished where he stood, and Sagara went home with his wives, delighted with what he had heard.

In time both lotus-eyed queens conceived. On the appointed day the princess of Shibi bore a boy as beautiful as a god. The princess of Vidarbha bore something shaped like a gourd. The king had decided to throw it away when a voice spoke out of the sky, grave and solemn. King, do not commit this hasty act; you must not abandon your sons. Take the seeds out of the gourd and keep each one carefully in a steaming vessel half filled with clarified butter. Then, descendant of Bharata, you will have sixty thousand sons. The great god has said that your sons are to be born in this way; do not let your mind turn from it. Sagara believed the voice and did exactly as it said. He set the seeds apart, one to a vessel of butter, and appointed a nurse to every vessel. After a long time sixty thousand sons of immeasurable strength rose from those jars by Rudra’s favor, and they were terrible. Their acts were ruthless. They could climb into the sky and roam there, and being so many, they despised everyone, the gods included. They chased gods, Gandharvas, Rakshasas, and every kind of creature for the pleasure of the fight. The harassed peoples of the world went with the gods to Brahma for refuge, and Brahma sent them home with a promise that was also a sentence. In no long time, he said, there will be a great and terrible destruction of Sagara’s sons, brought about by their own deeds.

Many days later Sagara took the consecration for a horse sacrifice. The rite required that a chosen horse wander the earth for a year, guarded, and that every kingdom it crossed either yield or fight; his sons rode as its guard. When the horse reached the sea, waterless now and frightful to look at, it vanished where it stood, guard and all. The sons decided it had been stolen and went back to tell their father. Go and search for the horse in all the cardinal points, Sagara said. They searched the four directions and the whole face of the earth, all sixty thousand together, and found neither horse nor thief, and came back to stand before him with joined palms. Protector of men, they said, at your command we have searched the whole world with its hills and forests and seas and islands, its streams and rivers and caves. We cannot find the horse or the man who stole it. The king lost his reason to anger. Carried along by destiny, he said to them all: go, and may you never return. Search for the horse again. Without the sacrificial horse, my boys, you must never come back.

They obeyed. They went out over the world a second time, and this time they found a rift in the surface of the earth and decided the horse lay beneath it. With spades and pickaxes they began to dig, and what they were digging was the bed of the sea. Torn and cut on every side, Varuna’s house fell into extreme distress. Demons, serpents, Rakshasas, and every kind of living thing screamed as the sons of Sagara killed them; hundreds of thousands lay with severed heads and severed trunks, skin and bone and joint broken apart. A very long time went by in that digging and still there was no horse. Then, in the northeast corner of the sea, the furious sons dug down as far as the underworld itself, and there they saw the horse, grazing loose on the ground. And they saw, beside it, a man who looked like a mass of light: the great Kapila, shining as fire shines with its own flame. They saw the horse first and their faces lit with joy. Then, driven on by the fate that had been waiting for them since Kailasa, they ignored the presence of the sage entirely and ran to seize the animal. Kapila, most righteous of saints, the one the great sages call Kapila Vasudeva, turned a burning look on them. Flame came from him, and the sixty thousand dull-headed sons of Sagara were ash.

A key to reading this (numbers, a modern equivalent): Sixty thousand sons is the point of the story rather than a flourish: a strength that can be counted and cannot be controlled. Notice how tightly the two tales are knotted. The horse vanishes on the shore of the very sea Agastya drank, and the sons dig up the dry seabed to find it, so their deaths are the direct consequence of the empty ocean, and their ashes will be the reason it is refilled.

The gist: Shiva’s boon promises sixty thousand sons and their common ruin in one breath. The sacrificial horse is lost on the dry seashore, a father’s fury sends his sons to dig up the world, and in the underworld a single glance from Kapila ends them all.

The banished son, the grandson’s bow, and Bhagiratha’s thousand years

Narada, whose austerities were beyond measure, saw the heaps of ash and carried the news to Sagara. For the space of an hour the king sat in grief; then he remembered what Shiva had said on Kailasa, and he sent for Amshuman, his grandson, the son of Asamanjas. Those sixty thousand sons of measureless strength have met Kapila’s anger and died on my account, he told the boy. And your own father, stainless one, I abandoned, to do my duty as a king and for the good of my subjects.

Yudhishthira wanted to know how a king could do that. Lomasha explained. The princess of Shibi had borne Sagara a son named Asamanjas, and the boy had grown into a horror. He would take the weak children of the townspeople by the throat and throw them, screaming, into the river. The citizens came to the king together, terrified and grieving, and stood with joined palms. Great king, they said, you are our protection against the dread of a hostile army. It is proper that you deliver us from the frightful danger that comes from Asamanjas. The most righteous of rulers sat for an hour in silence with that news, and then he spoke to his ministers. Today let my son Asamanjas be driven out of the city. If you wish to do what pleases me, let it be done quickly. It was done quickly. That is how Sagara banished his son for the welfare of the town. Now, Lomasha said, hear what he said to Amshuman of the strong bow.

My boy, sore is my heart, for I abandoned your father, and my sons are dead, and I have failed to get the horse back. Harassed by grief, confounded by the wreck of my sacrifice, I ask you to bring back the horse and deliver me from hell. Amshuman went sorrowfully to the place where the earth had been dug open and followed his uncles’ tunnel down into the sea, and there he saw the illustrious Kapila and the horse beside him. He did what sixty thousand men had not done. He looked at that ancient sage, that mass of light, and bowed with his head to the ground, and told him why he had come. Kapila was pleased with him and told him to ask a favor. Amshuman asked first for the horse, so that the sacrifice could be finished, and second for the purification of his fathers. The chief of sages answered him in full. Stainless prince, I will grant everything you desire; good fortune be yours. Forbearance, truth, and righteousness are fixed in you. Through you Sagara has all his desires fulfilled; you are a true son to your father. By your worth the sons of Sagara will go to heaven. And your son’s son, to purify them, will win the favor of the great god Shiva by his austerities and bring down to this world the river that flows in three streams, Ganga. Take the horse, my lad. Finish the great-souled Sagara’s rites.

Amshuman came back up into the sacrificial enclosure with the horse. He fell at Sagara’s feet, and Sagara smelled the crown of his head, the way a grandfather does, and Amshuman told him everything he had seen and heard, the death of his uncles included, and that the horse was in the yard. Sagara grieved no more for his sons. He praised the boy, finished the sacrifice, was greeted with honor by all the gods, and adopted the sea, Varuna’s house, as his own son. He ruled a long age, set his grandson on the throne with all its responsibilities, and went to heaven. Amshuman ruled the world to the edge of the sea in his grandfather’s footsteps, gave the kingdom to his son Dilipa, versed in virtue, and departed. When Dilipa learned what had become of his forefathers he grieved deeply and searched for a way to raise them. He made every great effort to bring Ganga down to the mortal world, and though he tried to the limit of his power, he could not. A son was born to him, Bhagiratha: beautiful, devout, truthful, without malice. Dilipa made him king, went to the forest, succeeded at last in his austerities, and rose from the forest to heaven.

Bhagiratha of the powerful bow, emperor and great chariot-warrior, was the delight of every eye in the world. He learned how his ancestors had met their awful end at Kapila’s hands and how they had been unable to reach the region of the gods, and with a sorrowful heart he handed his kingly duties to his minister and went to the side of the Himalaya to practice austerities. He wanted his sins extinguished and the goddess Ganga’s favor won, and he saw that greatest of mountains as a pilgrim sees it: peaks of every shape, veined with minerals, sprinkled on all sides by drops from clouds that rested on the wind; rivers and groves and rocky spurs like the palaces of a city; lions and tigers hidden in its caves and pits; birds of every color calling in every voice, bhringarajas and geese and datyuhas and water cocks and peacocks and hundred-feathered birds, jivanjivakas and blackbirds and black-cornered chakoras and the birds that love their young; lotuses in delightful pools, cranes making the place charming with their cries; Kinnaras and celestial nymphs seated on its slabs of stone; trees stripped by the tusks of the elephants of the quarters; Vidyadharas coming and going; gems everywhere, and snakes with glowing tongues and terrible poison. In places the mountain looked like massive gold, in places like a pile of silver, in places like a heap of black collyrium. On that mountain the king took up an awful course of life. For a thousand years he lived on water, fruit, and roots, and when a thousand years by the reckoning of the gods had passed, the great river assumed a material form and showed herself to him.

A key to reading this (numbers, a modern equivalent): A thousand years by the reckoning of the gods: one day of the gods is a human year in the tradition, so the span is in the hundreds of thousands of human years. The number is there to say that Bhagiratha’s austerity was the final, almost absurd stubbornness at the end of four generations of unfinished effort. The gesture of smelling a child’s head is the old Indian gesture of a parent’s welcome, older than the kiss.

The gist: Sagara gave up his own son for his people; now that son’s son wins from Kapila, by bowing, what sixty thousand could not take by force: the horse and a prophecy. The sacrifice is completed, but the ashes of the uncles still need water. Dilipa fails. Bhagiratha stands on the Himalaya for a thousand divine years, and Ganga appears.

The descent of Ganga: from Shiva’s head to the sea

Great king, said Ganga, what do you desire of me, and what must I bestow on you? Tell me, best of men, and I will do as you ask. The king answered the daughter of the snowy mountain with his family’s whole history in a few sentences. Great river, giver of boons, my forefathers went searching for a horse and were sent by Kapila to the house of death. Those sixty thousand sons of the great Sagara met the majestic Kapila and perished in an instant, and having perished, they have found no place in heaven. So long as you do not touch their bodies with your water, there is no salvation for them. Blessed goddess, carry my forefathers, Sagara’s sons, to the region of heaven. It is for their sake that I am asking.

The goddess whom the world salutes was pleased with him, and she told him the one thing that could stop the whole enterprise. I am ready to do what you ask, king; there is no doubt of it. But when I come down from the sky to the earth, the force of my fall will be hard to sustain. In the three worlds no one can bear it except Shiva, the greatest of gods, the great lord whose throat is dark blue. Win the favor of that giver of boons by austerities, strong-armed prince. He will receive my descent on his head. He will fulfill your wish to serve your fathers. So Bhagiratha went to Kailasa and began again. He gave himself to severe penance, and after a certain length of time the worker of blessings was pleased with him, and the boon Bhagiratha asked, so that his ancestors might have a place in heaven, was this one: that Shiva would hold the falling river.

Shiva heard Bhagiratha and answered him for the sake of the dwellers of heaven as much as for the king. So let it be. Most righteous of the protectors of men, prince of the powerful arm, for your sake I will sustain the river of the gods when she descends from the sky, she who is pure and blessed and divine. He came to the snowy mountain surrounded by his attendants, beings of awful appearance with weapons of every shape held high, and standing there he said to Bhagiratha: pray to the river now, the daughter of the king of mountains. I will hold that best of rivers when she falls from the third region of the world. The king became devout in his heart, bowed, and turned his thoughts to Ganga. The river, thought of like that, saw the great lord standing ready to receive her, and came down out of the sky all at once.

The gods gathered to watch, and with them the great sages, the Gandharvas, the serpents, and the Yakshas. Down came Ganga, the daughter of the snowy mountain, her whirlpools raging, her body teeming with fish and sharks, and as she sought the sea she divided herself into three streams. Her water was strewn with piles of froth like rows of white geese. In places she moved crooked and tortuous, in places she stumbled, and covered with foam as with a robe she went forward like a woman drunk; elsewhere the roar of her waters was a loud cry. In all these shapes she fell from the sky and reached the ground, and then she said to the king, great king, show me the path I must take; for your sake I have come down to the earth. Bhagiratha led the way to the place where the bodies of Sagara’s sons lay, so that the holy water could flood them. Shiva, his task of holding the river done, went back to Kailasa with the celestials, saluted by men. And the king, with Ganga following, reached the sea, and Varuna’s house was quickly filled. Bhagiratha adopted Ganga as his daughter, and there on the shore he offered water to the names of his forefathers, and the wish of his heart was accomplished. Thus, said Lomasha, since you asked, I have told you the whole story: how Ganga of the three streams was brought to earth to fill the sea, why the great sage drank the ocean, and how Vatapi, the killer of Brahmins, was destroyed by Agastya.

A key to reading this (names): Several of Ganga’s names come out of this story. She is Bhagirathi, the river Bhagiratha brought; the sea that Sagara’s sons dug and that swallowed their ashes is the sagara, the word for ocean; and Gangasagar, the mouth where the river meets the Bay of Bengal, is where her errand ended. The third region of the world is heaven, and a river of three streams is Tripathaga, she who goes by three paths, through heaven, earth, and the underworld.

The gist: Ganga is willing; her fall is the problem, and only Shiva can take it. Bhagiratha does a second austerity, the god stands on the Himalaya with his hosts, and the river comes down in three streams with foam like geese and asks which way to go. The way leads to a heap of ash and then to an empty sea, which fills. Four generations after Agastya drank it, the water comes back.

Nanda and Aparananda, and the peak where nobody may speak

Vaishampayana said: then Kunti’s son went on at an easy pace to the two rivers Nanda and Aparananda, whose water has the power to destroy the dread of sin, and came to the healthy hill Hemakuta, and there he saw things that no one could have expected. The mere sound of a word gathered clouds and brought down a thousand volleys of stones. People who looked at the hill grew sad and found they could not climb it. The wind there never stopped and the sky never stopped raining; the sound of the sacred scriptures being recited could be heard, and no reciter was anywhere in sight. Morning and evening the blessed fire that carries offerings to the gods appeared. Flies bit and broke the practice of austerities. A heaviness came over the mind, and people fell ill. The son of Pandu observed all this and asked Lomasha, again, what these wonders meant.

I will tell you as we heard it, Lomasha said; listen with an attentive mind. On this peak of Rishabha there once lived a sage of that name. His life lasted many hundred years; he was given to penance, and he was very wrathful. Once, because people spoke to him, he said to the hill in his anger: whoever utters a word here, throw stones at him, and call up the winds to stop him making any noise. That is what the sage said, and so, as soon as a man speaks in this place, a roaring cloud silences him. The great sage in his wrath forbade other things here as well. And tradition says that when the gods of old came to the Nanda, a crowd of men suddenly arrived to look at them. The gods with Indra at their head did not want to be seen, so they made this spot inaccessible by raising obstructions in the shape of hills, and from that day, son of Kunti, men have not been able even to set eyes on anything that looks like a hill here, let alone climb one. This great mountain cannot be seen by anyone who has not lived an austere life, and such a person cannot ascend it. So keep your tongue under control. Here all the gods once performed the best of sacrifices, and the marks are still here to see: this grass is shaped like the sacred kusha, the ground seems spread with it, and many of these trees look like the posts where the sacrificial beasts were tied. Gods and sages still live here, and their fire is seen morning and evening. Whoever bathes here has his sin destroyed on the spot. So bathe, best of the Kurus, with your brothers, and after you have washed in the Nanda you will go to the river Kaushiki, where Vishvamitra practiced the severest form of penance. The king and his companions bathed and went on to the Kaushiki, pure and delightful, pleasant with cool water.

A key to reading this (a place): Hemakuta, the golden peak, and its summit Rishabha belong to the part of the Himalaya where the tradition places the border between the human world and the gods’; Gandhamadana and Kailasa lie farther on in the same direction. The Kaushiki is the modern Kosi, which comes down out of Nepal into Bihar; it takes its name from Vishvamitra’s clan, the Kushikas, since he did his austerities on its banks.

The gist: The first place on the road where speech is forbidden. A sage’s anger and the gods’ wish for privacy have together given a mountain a rule of silence. Lomasha’s instruction is simple: hold your tongue here, bathe, move on.

On the Kaushiki: the sage born of a doe, and a kingdom without rain

This is the pure and divine river called Kaushiki, Lomasha said, and there is the delightful hermitage of Vishvamitra, plain to see. And this hermitage with the holy name belongs to Kashyapa of the mighty soul, whose son was Rishyashringa, devoted to penance, his passions under control. By the force of his austerities he made Indra rain; the god who killed the demons Vala and Vritra was afraid of that boy and poured down water in the middle of a drought. Kashyapa’s powerful son was born of a doe. He worked a great marvel in the territory of Lomapada, and when the crops had come back, king Lomapada gave him his daughter Shanta in marriage, the way the sun gave his daughter Savitri.

Yudhishthira had five questions and asked them all at once. How was Kashyapa’s son born of a doe? How was he holy, coming from a union that ought to be condemned? Why was Indra, who killed Vala and Vritra, afraid of a boy, and why did he rain in a drought? How beautiful was that princess Shanta, pure in life, who took the heart of a sage who lived like a stag? And if the royal sage Lomapada was a virtuous man, why had Indra, the chastiser of Paka, withheld rain from his land? Holy saint, tell it all in detail, exactly as it happened; I want to hear the deeds of Rishyashringa’s life.

Lomasha began with the father. Vibhandaka was a Brahmin sage who had cultivated his soul by austerity, whose seed never failed to produce offspring, learned and bright as the Lord of beings. Father and son were both honored; the son was a boy whom old men respected. Vibhandaka went to a great lake and gave himself to penance, and labored a long time, godlike. One day, washing his mouth in the water, he saw the celestial nymph Urvashi, and his seed left him. A doe, thirsty at that moment, drank it up with the water and conceived. She was in truth a daughter of the gods, and Brahma, the creator of the worlds, had told her long before: you will be a doe, and in that form you will give birth to a sage, and then you will be freed. As destiny would have it, and because the creator’s word cannot be false, the doe bore Vibhandaka’s son, a great sage. He grew up in the forest given to austerities. There was a horn on his head, and that is how he came to be called Rishyashringa, the deer-horned. Apart from his father he had never seen a human being, and so his mind was given entirely to the duties of a continent life.

In those years the ruler of Anga was a king named Lomapada, a friend of Dasharatha. We have heard, Lomasha said, that out of love of pleasure he told a lie to a Brahmin, and from that day the whole priestly order shunned him; he had no priest to conduct his rites. Then the thousand-eyed Indra abruptly stopped the rain over his kingdom, and his people began to suffer. Lomapada put the question to Brahmins of learning and penance and capacity: how may the heavens grant us rain? Think of an expedient. They gave their views, and one of them, the best of the sages, told the king the truth he did not want. Lord of kings, the Brahmins are angry with you. Do something to appease them. And send for Rishyashringa, the sage’s son who lives in the forest, who knows nothing of women and delights only in simplicity. If that great ascetic shows himself in your territory, rain will fall at once; I have no doubt of it. Lomapada made atonement for his sins and left the kingdom; when the Brahmins were appeased he returned, and the people were glad to see him back. Then the king of Anga called his ministers, men skilled in counsel, and labored over a plan for bringing Rishyashringa to Anga. With those ministers, versed in every branch of knowledge and thoroughly trained in practical affairs, he settled on one. He sent for the courtesans of the city, clever women, and told them: lovely ones, find some way to allure the sage’s son Rishyashringa, win his confidence, and bring him into my territory. The women were caught between the king’s anger on one side and the sage’s curse on the other. They said it was beyond them. One old woman among them said otherwise. Great king, I will try to bring here that one whose only wealth is penance. But you will have to procure certain things for my plan. Then perhaps I can bring the sage’s son. The king ordered that whatever she asked for should be supplied, and gave her wealth besides, and jewels of many kinds, and she chose women endowed with beauty and youth and set out for the forest without delay.

A key to reading this (names): The name is the sign: rishya, a kind of deer, and shringa, a horn. Lomapada rules Anga, the country around modern Bhagalpur and Munger, and his friendship with Dasharatha matters, because in the Valmiki Ramayana it is this same Rishyashringa who conducts the sacrifice that gives Dasharatha his four sons, Rama among them. There Shanta is Dasharatha’s daughter, adopted by Lomapada; here Vyasa calls her Lomapada’s own. The Savitri the story compares her to is the daughter of the sun, not the wife of Satyavan.

The gist: A doe drinks a sage’s seed and bears a horned boy who has seen no human being but his father. In another kingdom a lie has offended the Brahmins and the sky has closed. The cure is one and the same: bring that innocent ascetic into the land. And the one who undertakes to fetch him is an old courtesan.

The floating hermitage, and a guest the sage had no name for

The old woman built a hermitage on a boat. The king had ordered it and her plan required it: artificial trees hung with flowers and fruit, shrubs and creepers of every kind, real fruit that was choice and sweet, the whole thing so pleasing it might have been made by magic. She moored it a little way from the hermitage of Kashyapa’s son and sent scouts to learn where the young sage went and when. When she saw her moment she sent forward her daughter, a courtesan by profession and quick-witted, and the girl walked up to the hermitage and found the sage’s son alone.

She spoke to him in the only language he knew, the language of hermits asking after each other’s welfare. I hope all is well with the devotees here, she said. I hope your store of fruit and roots is plentiful and that you take delight in this hermitage. I have come to pay you a visit. I hope the austerities of the sages are increasing, that your father’s spirit has not slackened and that he is pleased with you. Rishyashringa of the priestly order, I hope you pursue the studies proper to you. He answered her exactly as his father had taught him to answer a holy visitor. You shine like a mass of light, he said, and I hold you worthy of obeisance. I will give you water for your feet and such fruits and roots as you like; that is what my religion prescribes. Please sit on this mat of sacred grass with the black deerskin spread on it, comfortable and pleasant. Where is your hermitage? Brahmin, you look like a god. What is the name of the vow you seem to be observing? The courtesan said: son of Kashyapa, beyond that hill, three yojanas across, is my hermitage, a delightful place. There, it is the rule of my faith to receive no obeisance, and I do not touch water for my feet. I am not worthy of obeisance from one like you; I must bow to you. And this, Brahmin, is the observance I practice: you must be clasped in my arms. He offered her fruit: gallnuts, myrobalans, karushas, ingudas from the sandy tracts, wild figs. Please take delight in them, he said.

She pushed his fruit aside and gave him food that was not for him, beautiful to see, delicious, and very welcome to Rishyashringa. She gave him garlands of an intense fragrance and shining garments and first-rate drinks, and then she played and laughed and enjoyed herself. She played with a ball in front of him, and bending to it she looked like a creeper broken in two. She touched his body with hers and clasped him in her arms, over and over. She bent down the flowering twigs of the sal and the ashoka and the tilaka, and drunk, with a bashful look put on, she went on tempting the son of the great sage. When she saw that his heart was touched, she pressed against him again and cast a glance, and slowly went away, saying she had offerings to make on the fire.

After she went he lost his senses to love. His mind turned to her and found itself empty. He sighed, and he was in great distress, and that was how his father found him. Vibhandaka came in, Kashyapa’s son, whose eyes were tawny like a lion’s, whose body was covered with hair to the tips of his nails, who lived in study and pure meditation, and he saw his son seated alone, pensive and sad, his mind upset, sighing again and again with his eyes turned up. My boy, he said, why are you not hewing logs for the fire? I hope you performed the burnt offering today. I hope you polished the sacrificial ladles and spoons and brought the calf to the cow whose milk feeds the fire. You are not in your usual state, son. You seem pensive; you seem to have lost your senses. Why are you so sad today? Let me ask you: who has been to this place today?

The gist: The courtesan speaks in the hermitage’s own idiom: her vow is an embrace, her fruits are wine. A boy who has never seen a woman honors his visitor as a radiant celibate. The moment she leaves, an emptiness settles on him, and his father reads it in his face before a word is said.

“A student with a mass of hair came today”: the boy’s description, the father’s warning, and the boat to Champa

Rishyashringa answered his father with the most careful description of a woman ever given by someone who did not know what a woman was. A religious student came here today, he said, with a mass of hair on his head. He was neither short nor tall, spirited in his look, golden in complexion, with eyes as large as lotuses; he shone and was graceful as a god. His beauty blazed like the sun. His eyes were black and lovely. His twisted hair was blue-black and neat and long and fragrant, tied with strings of gold. On his neck a beautiful ornament shone like lightning in the sky, and below his throat he had two balls of flesh without a single hair on them, exceedingly beautiful in form. His waist was slender, his navel neat, the region of his ribs smooth. A golden string showed from under his cloth, just like this waist-string of mine. On his feet was something of a wonderful shape that made a jingling sound, and on his wrists a pair of ornaments that sounded the same and looked like this rosary here. When he walked his ornaments chimed like happy geese on a sheet of water. His garments were of a wonderful make; these clothes of mine are nothing like them. His face was wonderful to look at, and his voice gladdened the heart; his speech was as pleasant as the song of the male blackbird, and listening to it I felt touched in my innermost soul. As a forest in spring is graceful only when the breeze sweeps over it, so, father, that one of an excellent and pure smell looked beautiful when the air fanned him. His hair lay neatly against his head and brow, evenly parted in two. His two eyes seemed covered by wonderful chakravaka birds of an exceedingly beautiful form. On his right palm he carried a wonderful round fruit that reached the ground and leaped up to the sky again and again in a strange way; he beat it, and turned around, and whirled like a tree moved by the wind. When I looked at him, father, he seemed a son of the celestials, and my joy was extreme, my pleasure unbounded. He clasped my body, took hold of my matted hair, bent my mouth down, and mingling his mouth with mine he made a sound that was exceedingly pleasant. He did not care for water for his feet or for the fruits I offered; he said that was his religious observance. He gave me fruits, and they were tasteful, not like these here; they had no rind and no stone. He gave me water of an exceedingly fine flavor, and having drunk it I felt great pleasure, and the ground seemed to move under my feet. These garlands, beautiful and fragrant and twined with silken threads, are his. He scattered them here and went back to his hermitage, shining with fervent piety. His going has saddened my heart, and my frame seems to be burning. I want to go to him as soon as I can, and to have him walk about here every day. Father, let me go to him this moment. What is the observance he practices? As he practices penance, so I wish to live the same life beside him. My heart is yearning after such observances. My soul will be in torment if I do not see him.

Vibhandaka knew exactly what had walked into his hermitage, and he named it the only way a hermit could. Those, my son, are Rakshasas. They walk about in that wonderfully beautiful form. Their strength is unrivaled and their beauty great, and they think of nothing but obstructing the practice of penance. They assume lovely forms and try to allure by every means. Those fierce beings have hurled forest-dwelling sages out of the blessed regions their piety had won. The sage who has control of his soul and wants the regions of the righteous should have nothing to do with them. Their acts are vile; their delight is in hindering ascetics; a pious man should not even look at them. And those drinks, son, were not fit to be drunk; they were spirits, consumed by the unrighteous. These garlands, bright and fragrant and of many colors, are not for sages. Having forbidden his son in this way, Vibhandaka went looking for her. He searched for three days and could not trace her, and came home.

The next time Kashyapa’s son went out to gather fruit, the courtesan came again, exactly as before. Rishyashringa saw her and was glad, and he hurried to her and said the one sentence the whole plan had been waiting for: let us go to your hermitage before my father comes back. So, king, the courtesans contrived to bring the only son of Kashyapa aboard their boat, and cast off, and delighting him in various ways they came at last to the side of the king of Anga. Lomapada had the exceedingly white vessel placed on the water within sight of his palace, and made a beautiful grove beside it called the Floating Hermitage, and kept Vibhandaka’s only son in the women’s quarters. Then, all at once, he saw rain pouring from the heavens and the world beginning to flood with water. The desire of his heart fulfilled, he gave his daughter Shanta to Rishyashringa in marriage. And to soften the anger of the boy’s father he prepared the road. Along the way Vibhandaka would have to come, he placed cattle and had fields plowed, and he stationed plentiful herds with stout cowherds and gave the cowherds an order: when the great sage Vibhandaka asks you about his son, join your palms and tell him that these cattle and these plowed fields belong to his son, that you are his slaves, and that you are ready to obey him in everything.

The sage of the fierce wrath came home with his fruit and roots and looked for his son, and not finding him, grew exceedingly angry. Tortured by rage, he suspected the king’s hand in it and set off toward the city of Champa, having decided to burn the king, his city, and his whole territory. On the way, tired and hungry, he reached those settlements rich in cattle. The cowherds honored him as befitted a king and he spent the night as a king would. After such hospitality he asked them, whose people are you, cowherds? They all came up and said, all this wealth has been provided for your son. At place after place he was honored like that, until he saw his son, who looked like Indra in heaven, and his daughter-in-law Shanta, who looked like lightning coming out of a cloud. Between the hamlets and the cowpens and Shanta, his great resentment was appeased, and he expressed great satisfaction with the king. Then that sage whose power rivaled the sun and the fire left his son there with one instruction: as soon as a son is born to you, and you have done everything agreeable to the king, come back to the forest without fail. Rishyashringa did exactly as his father said and went back to where his father was. And Shanta waited on him, obedient, as Rohini waits on the moon in the sky, as the fortunate Arundhati waits on Vasishtha, as Lopamudra waits on Agastya, as Damayanti was an obedient wife to Nala, as Shachi is to the god who holds the thunderbolt, as Indrasena the daughter of Narayana was always obedient to Mudgala; so Shanta waited on Rishyashringa with affection while he lived in the wood. This, Lomasha said, is the holy hermitage that belonged to him. It beautifies the great lake here and bears a holy fame. Perform your ablutions here and have your desire fulfilled, and purified, go on to the other holy places.

A key to reading this (one way of seeing): The description is the tenderest passage in the story: a boy who has never seen a woman understands her entirely through the objects of his own life, a waist-string, a rosary, fruit, a vow, and takes a ball for a fruit that leaps to the sky. The epic does not mock him. It shows his innocence through his own eyes and takes his father’s warning with equal seriousness. Damayanti, named among the model wives, was the heroine of the chapter you have just read.

The gist: The father calls the visitor a Rakshasa and searches three days; at the second visit the son boards the boat himself. The moment he reaches Champa the sky opens. Shanta is married to him, and the king lines the road with cattle and plowed fields until the furious father’s anger cools. Rishyashringa keeps his word and returns to the forest, and Shanta’s devotion is measured against Rohini, Arundhati, and Lopamudra.

Where Ganga meets the sea, the Vaitarani of Kalinga, and the earth that became an altar

Vaishampayana said: from the Kaushiki the son of Pandu went on to all the sacred shrines in their order, and came, protector of men, to the sea where Ganga falls into it, and there, in the center of five hundred rivers, he performed the holy plunge. Then with his brothers the valiant prince followed the shore of the sea toward the country of the Kalingas.

This is the land where the Kalingas live, Lomasha said. Through it runs the Vaitarani, on whose banks even the god of virtue performed a sacrifice, after placing himself under the protection of the celestials. This is the northern bank, inhabited by sages, fit for sacred rites, beautified by a hill and frequented by the twice-born. In holiness this spot rivals the road by which a virtuous man, ready for heaven, travels to the region of the gods. Here in former times other sages worshiped the immortals with rites. And here, king of kings, Rudra seized the sacrificial beast and cried out, this is my share! When Shiva carried the animal off, the gods said to him: do not cast a covetous glance at the property of others, disregarding all righteous rules. Then they spoke words of glorification to Rudra, pleasing ones, satisfied him with a sacrifice, and paid him suitable honors, and he gave up the beast and went by the road the gods travel. But learn what came of it, Yudhishthira. Out of dread of Rudra the gods set apart for him forever the best of all portions, the share that is fresh rather than stale. Whoever bathes here while reciting this old story sees with mortal eyes the path that leads to the region of the gods. So all the sons of Pandu, and Drupada’s daughter, favored of fate, went down into the Vaitarani and offered water to the names of their fathers.

Something happened to Yudhishthira in that water. Lomasha, he said, how great the force of a pious deed must be. Having bathed here in proper form I seem no longer to touch the region of mortal men. Saint of virtuous life, I am seeing all the regions. And that noise is the sound of great-souled forest-dwellers reciting their prayers aloud. Lomasha told him what he was hearing. The place that sound is coming from, Yudhishthira, is three hundred thousand yojanas away, to be sure. Lord of men, be still and say nothing. King, this is the divine forest of the Self-existent, which has now come into our view. Here Vishvakarma of the dreaded name performed his rites, and on the mighty occasion of that sacrifice the Self-existent gave this entire earth, hills and forests and all, to Kashyapa as his fee for serving as priest. And the goddess Earth, as she was being given away, grew sad at heart, and said in anger to that great lord of the worlds: mighty god, it is unworthy of you to give me to an ordinary mortal. This gift of yours will come to nothing, for here I am, going down to the bottom of the nether world. When the blessed Kashyapa saw the goddess Earth despondent, he performed a propitiatory rite to appease her, and pleased with his pious act she rose again from within the waters and showed herself in the form of a sacred altar. This is the spot, king, which plainly shows the shape of an altar. Great monarch, climb onto it, and you will gain valor and strength. This is the altar that reaches to the sea and rests on its bosom. May good luck be yours; mount it and cross the sea by your own act. While you climb it today I will perform the rite that averts all evil from you, for this altar, the moment a mortal touches it, enters the sea.

Then Lomasha said the words the king was to carry into the water, and they were half hymn and half instruction. Salutation to the god who protects the universe! Salutation to you who are beyond the universe! Lord of gods, be present in this sea. Son of Pandu, you must recite these words of truth, and reciting them, quickly ascend this altar: the god of fire, and the sun, and the organ of generation, and water, and the goddess, and the seed of Vishnu, and the navel of nectar; the god of fire is the organ that generated the ocean, the earth is your body, Vishnu deposited the seed that caused your being, and you are the navel of nectar. Say these words of truth aloud, son of Pandu, and saying them, plunge into the lord of rivers. Otherwise, best of Kunti’s sons, this lord of waters of divine birth, this great storehouse of the waters of the earth, must not be touched even with the tip of a blade of sacred grass. When the rite for averting evil had been completed on his behalf, the great-souled Yudhishthira went into the sea, did everything the sage had told him, and went on to the foot of Mount Mahendra, and there he spent the night.

A key to reading this (a place and a number): Kalinga is modern Odisha, and a river called Vaitarani still runs there under that name; the Vaitarani that marks the border of the land of the dead in later tradition is an otherworldly river of the same name. Three hundred thousand yojanas, at roughly eight miles to the yojana, is about ten times the distance from the earth to the moon; Lomasha is telling the king that what he is hearing lies outside the reach of human ears. Mahendra is the mountain in the Eastern Ghats where Parashurama is believed to live.

The gist: The pilgrimage follows the coast. At the Vaitarani, Rudra seizes his share of a sacrifice and the gods grant him the first portion forever. In the forest of the Self-existent, an earth given away as a priest’s fee sank toward the underworld and came back as an altar, and on that altar, speaking words of truth, Yudhishthira enters the sea. The next halt is Mahendra, and Parashurama lives there.

On Mount Mahendra: Akritavrana, the thousand-armed Arjuna, Richika’s horses, and two pots of rice exchanged

Vaishampayana said: the protector of the earth spent that one night there and paid the highest honors, with his brothers, to the religious men. Lomasha named them for him, the clans of Bhrigu and Angiras and Vasishtha and Kashyapa, and the royal sage visited them all and bowed with joined palms. Then he asked the valiant Akritavrana, a follower of Parashurama, when the revered Rama would show himself to the holy men here, because he wished, on that occasion, to see the descendant of Bhrigu.

Your journey here is already known to Rama, Akritavrana said, whose soul knows everything of itself. He is well pleased with you in every way and will show himself readily. The sages who practice austerities here are permitted to see him on the fourteenth and the eighth day of the lunar fortnight. Tomorrow, at the end of this very night, the fourteenth begins. Then you will see him, clad in a black deerskin, wearing his hair in a matted mass. Yudhishthira asked for the history while they waited. You have been a follower of the mighty Rama, Jamadagni’s son, he said, so you must have witnessed his deeds in former days. Tell me how the warrior order was vanquished by Rama on the field of battle, and what the original cause of those conflicts was.

With pleasure, said Akritavrana, and he began, as such stories do, with the enemy. The mighty lord of the Haihaya clan, a king named Arjuna, was killed by Rama. He had a thousand arms, son of Pandu, and by the favor of the sage Dattatreya he had a celestial chariot made of gold. His rule ran over every living thing on the earth, wherever it was, and that chariot could go anywhere unopposed. Made irresistible by his boon, he rode that chariot and trampled gods and Yakshas and sages on every side, and all born beings suffered under him. The celestials and the sages of rigid virtue met together and said to Vishnu, the god of gods, the slayer of demons whose prowess never fails: blessed and revered lord, for the preservation of all beings, Arjuna must be killed by you. And the Haihaya king, mounted on his celestial chariot, affronted Indra himself while that god was enjoying himself with Shachi, his queen. So the revered god took counsel with Indra about the destruction of Kartavirya’s son, and the lord of gods laid out everything that would be for the good of the world, and Vishnu, worshiped by the world, went to the delightful Badari forest, his own chosen retreat for austerities, to do what was necessary.

At that same time there was a mighty king in the country of Kanyakubja, a sovereign of vast military power, whose name, Gadhi, was famous in the world. He had gone to live in the forest, and while he lived there a daughter was born to him as beautiful as a nymph of heaven. Richika, the son of Bhrigu, asked for her in marriage. Gadhi said to that Brahmin of rigid austerity: there is a family custom in our line, founded by my ancestors in a bygone age. Know, most excellent of the priestly order, that the intending bridegroom must give a dowry of a thousand fleet horses, every one of them brown in color and every one with a single black ear. But a reverend saint like you cannot be asked for such a thing, and my daughter cannot be refused to a great-souled sage of your rank. Richika did not accept the exemption. I will give you a thousand fleet horses, brown in color and each with one black ear, he said; let your daughter be given to me. He went to Varuna and said, give me a thousand fleet horses, brown, each with one black ear; I want them as the dowry for my marriage. Varuna gave them at once. The horses came up out of the river Ganga, and the place has been named for it ever since: the horses’ landing. In the city of Kanyakubja the daughter of Gadhi, Satyavati, was given in marriage, and the gods themselves were in the bride’s party. So Richika, the best of the priestly order, got his thousand horses, saw the dwellers of heaven, and won a wife in proper form, and he enjoyed himself with the slender-waisted girl and gratified every wish he had ever had.

After the wedding his father Bhrigu came to see him and his wife, and was glad to see his praiseworthy son. Husband and wife paid their best respects to the sage whom all the gods worship, and when he was seated they stood near him with joined palms, ready for his bidding. Bhrigu, glad at heart, said to his daughter-in-law: lovely daughter, as a boon I am ready to grant any wish of yours. She asked that a son be born to her and to her mother both, and he granted it, with instructions. During the days your season lasts, you and your mother must bathe with the rite for bringing forth a male child. Then you must each embrace a different tree, she a peepal and you a fig. And dutiful girl, here are two pots of rice and milk which I have prepared with the utmost care; I have ransacked the whole universe for the drugs whose essence is blended into them. They must be eaten with the greatest care. He vanished. And the two women exchanged the pots, and exchanged the trees. After many days Bhrigu came again, already knowing what had happened by his divine knowledge, and said to Satyavati: dutiful girl, daughter of the lovely brow, you ate the wrong pot of rice and you embraced the wrong tree. It was your mother who deluded you. A son will be born of you who, though of the priestly order, will have the character of a warrior; and a mighty son will be born of your mother who, though a Kshatriya by birth, will take up the life of a Brahmin, and his power will be great, and he will walk the path of the righteous. She begged her father-in-law again and again: let my son not be of this character; let my grandson be so. And, son of Pandu, he said, so let it be, and was pleased to grant her prayer. On the expected day she bore a son named Jamadagni, endowed with both splendor and grace. He grew in years and in strength, and outstripped the other sages in Vedic learning, and to that boy, who rivaled the sun in luster, the whole science of arms and the fourfold missile weapons came of themselves, without a teacher.

A key to reading this (names): This Arjuna is Kartavirya Arjuna, the thousand-armed Haihaya king of Mahishmati on the Narmada, and has nothing to do with the Pandava. The exchanged pots produce two opposite sons. Satyavati’s line gives Jamadagni, whose son Parashurama becomes the Brahmin with a warrior’s nature, one generation later as the boon allowed; Gadhi’s wife bears Vishvamitra, the Kshatriya who becomes a Brahmin sage. Parashurama and Vishvamitra are therefore nephew and uncle, and the story of the Kaushiki you have just left is Vishvamitra’s river.

The gist: On Mahendra the story of Parashurama begins before his birth: a thousand-armed tyrant who insults Indra, Vishnu withdrawing to Badari, a bride-price of a thousand one-eared horses, and two pots from Bhrigu that a mother and daughter swap. One exchange changes the nature of two dynasties.

Renuka, the first stroke of the axe, and Kartavirya’s thousand arms

Jamadagni gave himself to the Veda and to sacred penance and became famous for austerity. He studied methodically and mastered the whole Veda. Then, king, he visited Prasenajit and asked for Renuka’s hand, and the king granted it, and the delight of Bhrigu’s line took his wife to a hermitage and practiced penance with her help. Four boys were born to her, and Rama the fifth, and though the youngest, Rama was superior to them all in merit. One day, when her sons had gone out to gather fruit, Renuka, whose life was pure and austere, went out to bathe. On the way home she happened to look toward the king of Martikavata, Chitraratha. The king was in the water with his wives, a lotus wreath on his breast, at play. She saw his magnificent form and desire came into her. She could not master it; there in the water she was polluted by it, and she came back to the hermitage frightened at heart. Her husband saw at once what state she was in. Mighty and powerful and quick to wrath, seeing that she had been giddy and that the luster of chastity had left her, he reproached her with a single word: fie.

At that moment the eldest of Jamadagni’s sons came in, Rumanvan, and then Sushena, and then Vasu, and then Vishvavasu, and one by one the sage ordered each of them to take their mother’s life. They were confounded. They lost heart; not one of them could speak a word. In his rage he cursed them, and cursed, they lost their senses on the spot and became like inanimate things, with the conduct of beasts and birds. Last of all Rama came into the hermitage, the slayer of hostile heroes. Kill this wicked mother of yours, Jamadagni of the mighty arms told him, without compunction, my son. Rama took up an axe at once and cut off his mother’s head. And the great sage’s wrath was appeased in the same instant. Well pleased, he said: you have done at my bidding a difficult thing, my boy, being versed in virtue. Whatever wishes are in your heart, I am ready to grant them all. Ask. Rama asked with the precision of someone who has thought about this before he lifted the axe. That his mother be restored to life. That he not be haunted by the memory of the deed. That no sin attach to him. That his brothers recover their former state. That he be unrivaled on the field of battle. That he have a long life. And Jamadagni, whose penances were the most rigid of all, granted every one.

Then came the cow. Once, when the sons were out as before, the valorous son of Kartavirya, lord of the country near the seashore, came up to the hermitage. The sage’s wife received him hospitably. Drunk with a warrior’s pride, he was not pleased with his reception; by force, against all resistance, he seized and carried off from the hermitage the chief of the cows, whose milk supplied the sacred butter, deaf to her loud lowing, and for good measure he pulled down the great trees of the wood. When Rama came home his father told him everything himself. Rama saw the cow’s calf and heard how she had lowed for it, and resentment rose in his heart, and he went after Kartavirya’s son, whose last moments had already drawn near. On the field the descendant of Bhrigu put out his valor: with sharpened, flat-tipped arrows shot from a beautiful bow he cut down Arjuna’s arms, a thousand of them, massive as the wooden bolts that bar a door. Touched already by the hand of death, Arjuna was overpowered by his enemy.

The kinsmen of Arjuna answered in the way that would decide the next age of the world. Their wrath was at Rama, but they came to the hermitage while Rama was away and found Jamadagni there. They killed him. His strength was great, but he was engaged in penance at the time and would not fight, and while they attacked him he called Rama’s name again and again, helplessly, piteously. The sons of Kartavirya shot Jamadagni full of arrows and, having chastised their enemy, went their way. When they had gone and Jamadagni had breathed his last, Rama came back to the hermitage carrying fuel for the sacred fire in his arms, and saw his father dead, and grieving beyond measure, began to lament the unworthy fate that had laid him low.

A key to reading this (a hard moment): The story leaves Renuka’s fault exactly as it is and does not rescue her: one moment of desire, and her husband condemns her to death. Vyasa clears neither Jamadagni nor Rama. Rama obeys, and then the first boon he asks is that his mother live and that the memory not haunt him. It is from this moment that the axe, parashu, enters his name: Parashurama, Rama of the axe, the sixth of Vishnu’s descents in the tradition.

The gist: A glance, a father’s rage, four brothers turned to stone, and Rama’s axe. Then a cow: Kartavirya’s son drags off the sacrificial cow, Rama cuts off his thousand arms, and in revenge the king’s kinsmen shoot the unarmed Jamadagni at his prayers. Rama walks in with firewood and finds his father’s body.

Twenty-one times, five lakes of blood, and the sight of Rama on the fourteenth day

The blame is mine, father, Rama said over the body, that like a stag in the wood you have been shot dead with arrows by those mean and stupid wretches, the sons of Kartavirya. You were virtuous, never straying from the path of righteousness, harmless to every living thing; how could fate permit you to die like this? What an awful sin they must have committed, who killed you with hundreds of sharpened shafts, an old man at his penances, with no wish at all to fight them. With what face will those shameless men tell their friends and servants what they did, that they killed a virtuous man alone and unresisting? He lamented a long while, and then he performed the obsequies. Rama, conqueror of hostile cities, cremated his father on the pyre, and over that fire he vowed the slaughter of the entire warrior order. Immense in strength, with the valor of a heroic soul, like the god of death himself, he took up his weapon in wrath and, single-handed, put the sons of Kartavirya to death. Three times he struck down all their Kshatriya followers, and seven times over that, twenty-one times in all, he emptied the earth of its warrior clans. In the tract called Samantapanchaka he made five lakes of blood. There the mightiest of Bhrigu’s line offered libations to his ancestors, the Bhrigus, and Richika appeared to him in visible form and counseled him. Then Jamadagni’s son of the dreaded name performed a mighty sacrifice, gratified the lord of the celestials, and gave the earth to the officiating priests. He raised an altar of gold, ten vyamas broad and nine high, and gave it to the great-souled Kashyapa, and at Kashyapa’s bidding the Brahmins divided the altar into shares, and from that they became known as the Khandavayanas, the share-takers. Having given the earth to Kashyapa, the exterminator of the warrior race took up penance of an exceedingly severe form. He lives now, Akritavrana said, on this Mahendra, monarch of hills. That is how the hostility arose between him and every Kshatriya on the earth, and that is how Rama subdued the whole world.

Vaishampayana said: on the fourteenth day of the moon, at the proper hour, the great-souled Rama showed himself to the Brahmins and to the virtuous king and his younger brothers. Yudhishthira and his brothers worshiped him, and the king paid the highest honors to all those members of the twice-born class; and having worshiped Jamadagni’s son and received words of praise from him, he spent the night on Mount Mahendra at Rama’s direction and set out toward the southern regions.

A key to reading this (numbers, a modern equivalent): The “three times” and “seven times” are the two halves of the original’s single word, thrice-seven, twenty-one, which is the number the tradition has always kept for Parashurama’s slaughters. A vyama is a man’s arm span, about six feet, so the golden altar stood roughly sixty feet wide and fifty-five high. Samantapanchaka is the tract that will later be called Kurukshetra: the Mahabharata war is fought on ground where five lakes of blood already lay.

The gist: Over his father’s pyre Rama vows the destruction of a whole order and keeps the vow twenty-one times. Then the same hand that emptied the earth of Kshatriyas gives the earth away to Kashyapa and goes back to penance. The Pandavas see this hermit on the fourteenth day, and turn south.

Godavari to Prabhasa, and the tears of the Vrishnis at the sight of the Pandavas in the dust

Vaishampayana said: the great-souled monarch went on, visiting the bathing places along the shore of the sea, all of them sacred and pleasant and frequented by Brahmins. Son of Parikshit, he bathed in them in proper form with his younger brothers and came to an excellent river, holiest of all, and there too he took his plunge, offered libations to his forefathers and the gods, and distributed riches among the leaders of the twice-born. Then he went to the Godavari, which falls directly into the sea, and there he was freed from his sins. He reached the sea in the Dravida country and visited the holy spot that carries Agastya’s name, sacred and pure beyond the ordinary, and he visited the holy places of the women. And here he heard the story of that famous feat of Arjuna’s, chief of all who wield the bow, which no human power could have performed; the greatest of the sages praised him for it, and the son of Pandu felt the greatest delight. With Krishna at his side he bathed in those holy places and spent his time there happily, praising Arjuna’s valor. He gave away thousands of cows at those tirthas on the coast, and told his brothers, pleased, how Arjuna had once given cows there. One by one he visited the holy places along the sea and many other sacred spots, and fulfilled his heart’s desire, until he came to the holiest of them all, called Shurparaka.

Crossing a stretch of the coast, he reached a forest celebrated on earth, where in former days the gods had practiced austerity and virtuous kings had performed sacrifice. There the long-armed king saw the famous altar of Richika’s son, the foremost of all bowmen, girt with hosts of ascetics and fit for the worship of the virtuous. He saw the holy and delightful shrines of all the gods: of the Vasus, of the hosts of the wind, of the two celestial physicians, of Yama the son of the sun, of the lord of riches, of Indra, of Vishnu, of the lord Creator, of Shiva, of the moon and the maker of day, of the lord of waters, of the Sadhyas, of Brahma, of the forefathers, of Rudra with all his followers, of the goddess of learning, of the host of Siddhas, and of many immortal gods besides. In those shrines the king kept various fasts and gave away quantities of gems. He bathed in every holy place and came back to Shurparaka, and from the same landing on the sea he went on with his brothers to the holy Prabhasa, whose fame mighty Brahmins have spread through the world. There the king of the large red eyes washed with all his younger brothers and offered libations to the forefathers and the celestial hosts, and so did Krishna, and so did all the Brahmins with Lomasha. For twelve days he lived on air and water. He bathed by day and by night, and he sat surrounded by fires kindled on every side. That was how the greatest of virtuous men practiced austerity at Prabhasa.

Word of it reached Dwarka. Balarama and Krishna, the two leaders of the whole Vrishni clan, heard that the king was performing penance of the most austere kind, and they came with troops to Yudhishthira of Ajamidha’s line. What they found was hard to look at. The sons of Pandu were lying on the ground with their bodies smeared with dirt, and the daughter of Drupada was in a sad state, and the Vrishnis’ grief was so great that they could not keep from breaking into loud lamentation. Then the king, whose courage was of the kind that misfortune could never cast down, met Balarama and Krishna warmly, and Samba, Krishna’s son, and the grandson of Shini, and the other Vrishnis, and honored them in due form. They honored all the sons of Pritha in return and were honored again by the sons of Pandu, and they sat down around Yudhishthira as the celestial hosts sit around Indra. Highly pleased, he told them everything: the plots of his adversaries, how he had lived in the forest, how Arjuna had gone to Indra’s abode to learn the science of arms; all of it he told with a gladdened heart. They were happy to hear the news. But when they looked at how thin the Pandavas had become, those majestic and great-souled Vrishnis could not hold back the tears that came of themselves from the pain they felt.

A key to reading this (a place): This is the southern and western arc of the journey: the mouth of the Godavari, the Agastya tirtha in the Dravida country, then up the western coast to Shurparaka, modern Nalasopara near Mumbai, where Parashurama’s altar stands, and Prabhasa near Somnath in Saurashtra, close enough to Dwarka for the Vrishnis to arrive with an army. The feat of Arjuna’s that is recounted at the southern tirthas belongs to his twelve-year pilgrimage in the Adi Parva; the “grandson of Shini” is Satyaki, Arjuna’s pupil and the Vrishnis’ fiercest champion.

The gist: At the end of a long string of coastal tirthas Yudhishthira sits twelve days at Prabhasa on air and water, ringed with fire. The news reaches Dwarka. The clan that can guard the three worlds sees its friends lying in the dirt, and weeps.

Three voices at Prabhasa: Balarama’s doubt, Satyaki’s call to war, and Yudhishthira’s truth

Janamejaya asked what was said there, since all of them were great souls, learned in every science, and the Vrishnis and the Pandavas held one another in friendly regard. Vaishampayana said: when the Vrishnis reached Prabhasa, the sacred landing on the coast, they surrounded the sons of Pandu and waited on them. Then Balarama spoke, who was the color of cow’s milk and the kunda flower and the moon and silver and the lotus root, who wore a wreath of wild flowers and carried a plowshare for a weapon, and he spoke to the lotus-eyed one, and what he said was a doubt about the foundation of everything. Krishna, I do not see that the practice of virtue leads to any good or that unrighteous practice causes any harm, since the great-souled Yudhishthira is in this miserable state, matted-haired, living in the woods, wearing bark, while Duryodhana rules the earth and the ground does not swallow him. From this a person of limited sense would conclude that a vicious life is preferable to a virtuous one. When Duryodhana flourishes and Yudhishthira, robbed of his throne, suffers like this, what are people to do? That is the doubt perplexing every man now. Here is a lord of men sprung from the god of virtue, holding to the righteous path, strictly truthful, liberal of heart. This son of Pritha would give up his kingdom and his pleasures rather than swerve from righteousness to prosper. How is it that Bhishma and Kripa and the Brahmin Drona and the aged king, the senior of the house, live happily after banishing the sons of Pritha? Shame on the vicious-minded leaders of Bharata’s race. What will that sinner, that chieftain of the earth, say to the departed forefathers of his line when he meets them in the world to come? Having thrown his harmless sons from the throne, will he be able to say he treated them blamelessly? He does not see with his mind’s eye how he came to be so sightless, and for what act he has become blind among all the kings of this earth. Is it not because he banished Kunti’s son from his kingdom? I have no doubt that Vichitravirya’s son, when he and his sons committed this inhuman act, saw flowering trees of a golden hue in the place where corpses are burned. He must have questioned them as they stood before him with their shoulders thrust forward and their large red eyes staring, and listened to their evil counsel, since he fearlessly sent Yudhishthira into the forest, a man who had all his weapons with him and his younger brothers for company.

This Bhima, whose appetite is a wolf’s, can destroy a formidable array of hostile troops with the bare strength of his arms and no weapon of war. Armies in the field went limp at his war cry. And now the strong one suffers hunger and thirst and is worn thin with hard travel. But when he takes arrows and other weapons in his hand and meets his enemies in the field, he will remember the sufferings of this miserable forest life and kill them to a man; I anticipate it with certainty. There is not a soul in the whole world who can claim strength and prowess equal to his, and his body, alas, is wasted by cold and heat and wind. But when he stands up to fight, he will not leave one of his enemies alive. This great chariot-warrior conquered single-handed all the kings of the east and their followers and came home from those wars unhurt; the same Bhima, dressed in bark, leads a wretched life in the woods. This powerful Sahadeva vanquished all the kings of the south, the lords of men who gathered on the coast of the sea; look at him now in an anchorite’s dress. Nakula, valiant in battle, single-handed subdued the kings who ruled the west; he walks the wood living on fruit and roots, with matted hair and his body smeared with dirt. This king’s daughter, who rose from beneath the altar in the pomp of a sacrifice and was always accustomed to happiness, how is she enduring this miserable life in the wood? And the son of the god of virtue, of virtue that stands at the head of the three pursuits of life, and the son of the wind god, and the son of the lord of celestials, and the two sons of the celestial physicians, sons of all those gods and accustomed to happiness, how are they living in this wood without any comfort at all? When the son of virtue was defeated, when his wife and brothers and followers and he himself were driven out, and Duryodhana began to flourish, why did the earth and all its hills not sink?

Satyaki did not answer the doubt; he answered the moment. Rama, this is not the time for lamentation; let us do what is proper and suited to the occasion, even if Yudhishthira does not say a word. People who have others to look after their welfare do not undertake things themselves; others do their work, as Shaibya and the rest did for Yayati. Those who have appointed officers to act on their own responsibility, as leaders of men do, may be said to have real patrons, and they meet no difficulty, unlike the helpless. How is it that when the sons of Pritha have for patrons these two men, Rama and Krishna, and two more, Pradyumna and Samba, and me besides, patrons who could protect all three worlds, the son of Pritha lives in the wood with his brothers? It is fitting that this very day the army of the Dasharhas march out, armed in every way and in checkered mail. Let Dhritarashtra’s sons be overwhelmed by the forces of the Vrishnis and go with their friends to the house of the god of death. You alone, who wield the bow made of horn, if roused, could encircle the whole of this earth. I ask you to kill Dhritarashtra’s son with all his men as the great Indra, lord of the gods, killed Vritra. Arjuna, the son of Pritha, is my brother, and my friend, and my preceptor, and like the second self of Krishna. This is why men desire a worthy son, and why a teacher looks for a pupil who will not contradict him. And this is why the time has come for that excellent work, best of all tasks and hardest to do. I will baffle Duryodhana’s volleys with my own excellent weapons. I will overpower everyone on the field. In my wrath I will cut off his head with shafts little inferior to snakes and poison and fire, and with the keen edge of my sword I will sever it from his trunk by force, and then kill his followers, and Duryodhana, and all of Kuru’s race. Son of Rohini, let the followers of Bhima look at me with joy in their hearts when I hold my weapons on the field and go on killing the best fighting men of the Kurus, as fire at the end of time burns vast heaps of straw. Kripa and Drona and Vikarna and Karna cannot bear the keen arrows of Pradyumna; I know the power of Arjuna’s son, who conducts himself in battle like a son of Krishna. Let Samba chastise Dushasana by the strength of his arms; let him destroy Dushasana and his charioteer and his chariot by force. When Jambavati’s son becomes irresistible in a fight, nothing can withstand him. The army of the demon Shambara was routed by him when he was only a boy; he killed Ashvachakra in fight, whose thighs were round and whose muscular arms were of exceeding length. Who could go forward against the chariot of Samba, great in battle, when he is mounted? As a mortal in the clutches of death cannot escape, so who, once in his clutches on the field, could come back alive? The son of Vasudeva will burn down every hostile troop with volleys of fiery shafts, and those two great chariot-warriors Bhishma and Drona, and Somadatta and all his sons. What in all the world, gods included, can Krishna not meet on equal footing when he takes up his weapons, excellent arrows in his hands and his discus with him, and becomes unrivaled in fight? Let Aniruddha take up his buckler and his sword and cover the face of the earth with Dhritarashtra’s sons, their heads parted from their trunks and their bodies senseless, as an altar in a sacrifice is spread with sacred grass. And Gada and Uluka and Vahuka and Bhanu and Nitha and the young Nishatha, valiant in battle, and Sarana, and Charudeshna, irresistible in war, let them perform feats worthy of their race. Let the united army of the Satvatas and the Shuras, with the best soldiers of the Vrishnis, the Bhojas, and the Andhakas, kill those sons of Dhritarashtra on the field and spread their fame through the world. Then let Abhimanyu rule the world so long as this most excellent of virtuous men, the great-souled Yudhishthira, is fulfilling his vow, the vow that the most righteous of Kuru’s race accepted and declared at that famous game of dice. Afterward the virtuous king will protect the earth, all his enemies defeated by the shafts we discharge. Then there will be no sons of Dhritarashtra left on the earth, and no son of the charioteer either. This is the most important work before us, and it will surely lead to fame.

Krishna answered both of them, and he began by agreeing. Scion of Madhu’s race, no doubt what you say is true; we accept your words, you whose courage never weakens. But this bull of the Kuru race would never accept the sovereignty of the earth unless it were won by the prowess of his own arms. Neither for pleasure, nor from fear, nor from covetousness would Yudhishthira ever renounce the rules of his order; nor would these two heroes, mighty when mounted on a chariot, Bhima and Arjuna; nor the twins, nor Krishna, the daughter of Drupada. He of the wolf’s appetite and the winner of riches are both unrivaled in fight throughout the world. And why should this king not rule the whole earth, when the two sons of Madri espouse his cause? Let the high-souled ruler of Panchala, and the Kekaya king, and we ourselves put forth our united strength, and then the enemies of Yudhishthira will be annihilated. And Yudhishthira said the thing that made all three speeches moot. It is not strange that you should speak this way, scion of Madhu’s race. But to me truth seems the first consideration, above my sovereignty itself. It is Krishna alone who knows precisely what I am, and I alone who know precisely what Krishna is. Valiant one, as soon as he perceives that the time has come for feats of bravery, then, bravest of Shini’s race, he of the beautiful hair will defeat Suyodhana. Let the brave men of the Dasharha race go back today. They are my patrons, the foremost of human beings, and they have come to visit me here. You of immeasurable strength, never fall from the path of virtue. I shall see you again, when you are happily gathered together.

They greeted one another, bowed to the elders and embraced the young, and the valiant men of the Yadu race and the sons of Pandu parted; the Yadus went home, and the Pandavas went on to the sacred places. After parting from Krishna, the virtuous king went with his brothers and his servants and Lomasha to the sacred river Payoshni, whose fine landing had been built by the king of Vidarbha, and he lived on its banks, where the water is mingled with the distilled soma juice, and numerous leaders of the twice-born, delighted to see him there, greeted him with excellent praise.

A key to reading this (names): “Rama” here is Balarama, Rohini’s son, the plow-bearer, Krishna’s elder brother. Dasharhas, Satvatas, Vrishnis, Bhojas, and Andhakas are the branches of the Yadava clan that Krishna and Balarama lead. Pradyumna and Samba are Krishna’s sons (Samba by Jambavati), Aniruddha is Pradyumna’s son, and Satyaki, the grandson of Shini, is Arjuna’s pupil in arms. Balarama’s hardest words are aimed at Dhritarashtra, and the epic keeps them uncut. His image of golden flowering trees in a cremation ground is an omen of death.

The gist: Three voices rise at Prabhasa. Balarama questions dharma itself: if this is virtue’s reward, what are people to think? Satyaki wants war today and counts off the whole Yadava army by name. Krishna grants both their truth and holds to one condition: Yudhishthira will take only a kingdom he has won. And Yudhishthira sets his vow above any throne and sends his friends home. This is where the exile stops being a sentence and becomes a choice.

Source: the Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Vana Parva, Tirthayatra sub-parva, Sections 103 to 161. The Gita Press Hindi edition is the controlling witness. Kisari Mohan Ganguli’s complete English translation was used to verify names, sequence, and principal events. Where recensions differ, this retelling follows Gita Press.