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Listen: this story rises from the hour when the throne of heaven was trembling. Nandishvara had told Sanatkumara to receive, with a glad heart, the account of Maheshvara’s most exalted incarnation, the one named Pippalada, a story that swells the roots of devotion. It began this way. There was a time when the daityas (demons), drawing on the strength of Vritrasura, defeated Indra and the whole company of the gods in open battle. Those who only yesterday were called lords of the three worlds were, that day, fleeing to save their lives. As they fled, every one of the gods cast down his weapons at the ashram of the sage Dadhichi and gave up the fight on the spot. Then, still reeling from the blows, Indra and all the gods and the divine seers went straight to Brahmaloka, and there, before Brahma, the grandfather of the worlds, they poured out the whole of their sorrow.
When Brahma had heard them out, he laid the whole secret bare, exactly as it stood. This, he said, is all the work of Tvashta. It was Tvashta who, through his tapas (austerity), brought Vritrasura into being for the very purpose of destroying you. The demon is filled with tremendous inner strength, and he has now installed himself as overlord of every daitya. So you must contrive some means by which he can be killed.
The Remedy Brahma Prescribed
Then Brahma turned his gaze to the king of the gods and spoke. Wise Indra, out of duty I will set one remedy before you in this matter, so listen closely. There is a great sage named Dadhichi, a man of deep austerity who has mastered his senses. Long ago, by worshipping Shiva, he won this boon: that his bones should become hard as the thunderbolt (vajra). Go to him and beg him for his bones. He will surely give them. Then have a vajra staff forged from those bones, and with it kill Vritrasura.
On hearing Brahma’s words, Indra took the preceptor of the gods, Brihaspati, along with the other gods, and came at once to the fine ashram of the sage Dadhichi. There he beheld the sage seated beside his wife, Suvarcha, and folded his hands in respectful greeting. Brihaspati and the rest of the gods bowed their heads as well. Now Dadhichi stood first among the learned, and the moment his visitors arrived he read their intent. Quietly he sent his wife, Suvarcha, away from the ashram to another place. Then Indra, who was skilled at securing his own ends, leaned on the science of statecraft and addressed the sage. Sage, he said, you are a great devotee of Shiva, a giver, a protector of those who come for shelter. That is why, humiliated at the hands of our enemy, all of us, the gods and the divine seers, have come to take refuge with you. Best of sages, grant us your thunderbolt bones, for from your bones we will have a vajra forged, and with it we will kill that betrayer of the gods.
The Gift of the Bones
Now witness a form of giving before which the grandest of yajnas (fire-rites) grow pale. The instant Indra finished speaking, Dadhichi, whose whole nature bent toward the good of others, fixed his mind on his lord Shiva and let go of his body. Every tie that bound him had already fallen away, so he passed at once to Brahmaloka. In that moment flowers rained down there, and everyone stood amazed. Indra then summoned the celestial cow Surabhi and had her lick the body clean, and he ordered Vishvakarma to forge weapons from the bones. At the command, Vishvakarma, working with bones made adamantine by Shiva’s own radiance, fashioned a full arsenal. From the spine he made the vajra and the arrow called Brahmashira, and from the remaining bones he forged many more weapons besides.
Then Indra, lifted high by the radiance of Shiva, took up that vajra and hurled himself at Vritrasura in fury, the way Rudra had once fallen upon Yama, the lord of death. Armored and guarded, Indra loosed his full might in an instant, and with the vajra he sheared away Vritrasura’s head, which rose like a mountain peak. In that hour the dwellers of heaven held a great festival of victory, flowers showered from the sky, and all the gods rose in praise of Indra.
Suvarcha’s Curse and the Voice from the Sky
But turn back now, for a moment, toward the ashram. Suvarcha, wife of the great and inwardly powerful sage Dadhichi, returned inside the ashram as her husband had bidden her, and there she learned that he had surrendered his life for the sake of the gods. A curse rose to her lips. Ah, she said, Indra and all these gods are clever at getting their own work done, and they are fools as well, so let every one of them, from this day, be turned to beasts by my curse. In this way the ascetic wife of the sage cursed Indra and the whole company of the gods. After that she resolved to follow her husband to his world, and she built a pyre of the most sacred wood. At that very moment, prompted by Shankara, a gentle voice spoke from the sky to reassure the sage’s wife. Wise one, it said, do not attempt this reckless thing; hear my good counsel. Lady, the radiance of the sage lives in your womb; bring it forth with care. Afterward do as you please, for the scriptures command that a pregnant woman must not burn her own body, which is to say she must not become sati.
With that, the voice fell silent. The sage’s wife sat amazed for a moment, yet her heart was set on reaching her husband’s world. So she sat down and tore open her own womb with a stone. Out of it came the child of the sage Dadhichi. Its body was utterly divine and luminous, lighting all ten directions with its own splendor. Born of Dadhichi’s supreme radiance, the boy was able to work his own play, an incarnation of Rudra himself. The instant Suvarcha, beloved of the sage, looked upon her son in his divine form, she understood in her heart that here was Rudra come down to earth. The great and virtuous woman sank into perfect bliss; she bowed low, offered praise, and held that form within her heart. Then the mother, whose longing was for her husband’s world, smiled and spoke to her son with the deepest love. Dear Parameshana, she said, take your seat near this undying tree and remain here for ages. Blessed one, be the giver of joy to all living beings, and now, lovingly, grant me leave to go to my husband’s world. Dwelling there at his side, I will keep my mind on you, on the form of Rudra.
Having spoken so to her son, the virtuous Suvarcha followed her husband by entering a final, absolute samadhi (deep meditative absorption). In this way Dadhichi’s wife, Suvarcha, reached Shivaloka, rejoined her husband, and took up the joyful service of Shankara.
Pippalada Beneath the Ashvattha
Just then Indra and the whole company of the gods, full of joy, arrived there with the sages as though they had come on invitation. And Brahma, whose intellect ran fathomless, gave the child the name Pippalada. Then all the gods, having held their festival, returned each to his own realm. After that the mighty and majestic Pippalada, this incarnation of Rudra, settled beneath that same ashvattha and took up a long course of austerity for the welfare of the world. Following the ways of ordinary people, Pippalada spent a great span of time in this tapas.
In time Pippalada married Padma, daughter of King Anaranya, and, grown to his youth, lived happily with her. The sage had ten sons, and every one of them turned out great-souled like their father and fierce in austerity, each a credit to the line of their mother, Padma. In this way the sage Pippalada, the play-born incarnation (lilavatara) of the great lord Shankara, performed his many kinds of divine play (lila) with great splendor.
Now hear the episode that keeps Pippalada’s name on the tongues of the suffering to this day. That merciful sage saw that the affliction Shani lays upon the world is of a kind no one has the power to lift. So, with a glad heart, he granted people this boon: that human beings from birth up to the age of sixteen years, and the devotees of Shiva, can never be touched by Shani’s affliction, and this word of mine is true through and through. Should Shani ever slight my word and afflict such people, he will without question be burned to ashes. It is out of this fear that Shani, greatest of the planets, never harms such people, however restless the impulse in him.
In the popular tellings this episode usually ends once the vajra is forged and Vritra is slain, yet this current of the Shiva Purana flows on past that point, and here the very hardness of the bones, hard as the thunderbolt, is itself a gift of the boon Dadhichi won by worshipping Shiva.
Nandishvara says that the mere remembrance of these three, Gadhi, Kaushika, and the great sage Pippalada, destroys the suffering that Shani brings. Blessed is the sage Dadhichi, supreme in wisdom and a great devotee of Shiva, in whose house Maheshvara himself was born as a son by the name of Pippalada. This story is without flaw, a giver of heaven, a destroyer of the ills that spring from cruel planets, a fulfiller of every heart’s desire, and a special nourisher of devotion to Shiva.
Source: the Shiva Purana (Gita Press, Sankshipta Shivapurananka), Shatarudra Samhita