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Who Is the Naked One
Maitreya said to Parashara, “Lord, I know well enough what is meant by the eunuch, the outcast, the woman in her season, and the rest, but I do not know who is called ‘naked.’ Tell me, please: who is the naked one, and by what conduct does a man earn that name?”
Parashara replied, “O twice-born, the three Vedas, Rik, Sama, and Yajus, are the covering of all the varnas, the very garment that clothes them. The man who in his delusion casts that garment away, that sinner is the one called ‘naked.’ This is a teaching my grandfather, the dharma-knowing Vasishtha, once gave; hear it now. Long ago a terrible war raged for a hundred divine years between the gods and the asuras. In it the gods were beaten at the hands of Hrada and the other daityas. So they withdrew to the northern shore of the Ocean of Milk, gave themselves to tapas (austerity), and lifted their voices in praise to worship the Lord Vishnu.”
The Plea of the Gods
The gods prayed, “Be gracious, O Lord. O Soul of all beings, this whole spread of creation, from Brahma down to an unmoving post, the seen and the unseen alike, is your own body. Indra, Surya, Rudra, the Vasus, the Ashvini twins, and the host of Maruts are your forms as well. The dharma that grants devout people the fruit of their sacrifices, that too is you; and the Time-form that devours all creatures at the close of a kalpa, that also is you. O lotus-eyed one, to that form of yours, the unborn, the all-pervading, the imperishable Supreme who is the first cause of everything, we bow.”
When the hymn ended, the gods saw the Supreme Lord Shri Hari himself seated before them, conch, discus, and mace in hand, mounted upon Garuda. They bowed and said, “Lord, protect those who have come to you for refuge from the daityas. Hrada and the other demons have flouted even the command of Brahma and seized for themselves our share of the sacrifices, and the shares of all three worlds. Though we and they alike are portions of you, in our ignorance we see the world as a thing of separate parts. Our enemies keep the dharma of their varna, they follow the path of the Vedas, they are firm in austerity, and for that reason they cannot be slain by us. O Soul of all, show us some way by which we may bring these asuras down.”
Mayamoha Takes Form
Parashara continued, “Maitreya, when the gods had spoken so, Lord Vishnu brought forth from his own body a being named Mayamoha, the Deluder, and handed him to the gods with these words: ‘This Mayamoha will cast a spell over the whole race of daityas. Once they have strayed from the path of the Vedas, they will become fit for you to kill. Go now, and have no fear; this Mayamoha will serve your purpose well.’ Having received the Lord’s command, the gods bowed to him and departed, and Mayamoha went with them to the place where the great asuras sat at their austerities.”
The Preacher on the Narmada
Then Mayamoha, wearing peacock feathers, naked as the sky, his head shaven bald, approached the asuras who sat in penance on the bank of the Narmada and asked them in the sweetest voice, “Lords of the daityas, to what end do you practice these austerities? Do you seek a reward in this world or in the next?” The asuras answered, “We desire the reward of the next world.” Mayamoha said, “If liberation is what you want, then do exactly as I tell you. This dharma is the open gate to freedom; there is no dharma higher than it. Perform its rites, and whether you long for heaven or for liberation, that is precisely what you will win.”
In this way, with endless arguments of every kind (“This is dharma and that is not; this is real and that is unreal; this is the way of the sky-clad and this the way of the robed”), Mayamoha loosened the daityas from their own dharma. Because he had told them to give arhana, that is, reverence, to this great teaching, those who took it up came to be called Arhatas. Then Mayamoha, master of his senses, put on red robes and said to other asuras, “If you want heaven or moksha, give up cruel acts such as the killing of animals, and reach true understanding. Know that this whole world is nothing but consciousness. The wise hold that this world rests on no foundation, that it stands upon the appearance of things born of illusion, and that it is stained by faults such as attachment.” With words like “budhyata, budhyadhvam,” know, awaken, he pried them loose from their own dharma.
Now one of them began to mock the Vedas, another the gods, another the brahmins. They would say, “That burning an oblation in fire yields any fruit is a child’s fancy. If an animal offered up in sacrifice goes to heaven, why does the sacrificer not slaughter his own father instead? If one man’s eating could satisfy another, what need is there to carry food along on a journey? Let the sons simply perform the shraddha at home.” So it was that in only a little while the asuras, spellbound by Mayamoha, gave up even speaking of the Vedic dharma. Those who had thrown off the garment that is the three Vedas, they were the ones called “naked.” Then the gods, well prepared, came against them in battle, and with the armor of their own dharma destroyed, those daityas who had set themselves against the true path were slain at the hands of the gods.
King Shatadhanu and Shaivya
It is told that in an earlier age there lived upon the earth a king named Shatadhanu. His wife, Shaivya, was a woman of the deepest devotion to dharma, endowed with truth, purity, and compassion, graced with modesty and good judgment and every fine quality, a great and fortunate wife wholly given to her husband. The two of them worshiped Shri Janardana, the God of gods, in perfect one-pointed absorption, and every day they lost themselves in the Lord’s bhakti (devotion) through fire-offering, japa, giving, fasting, and worship.
One day, after keeping the fast of the Kartika full moon, the husband and wife had bathed in the Bhagirathi and were coming out of the water when a heretic crossed their path. The man was a friend of the king’s teacher of archery, so out of respect for that teacher the king too treated him with the warmth of a friend. But Shaivya, devoted to her husband, gave him no honor at all; thinking to herself that she was under a fast, she kept silent and went on gazing toward the sun. Then, coming home, the two of them completed the worship of Lord Vishnu according to the rites. In time that king, the conqueror of his foes, died, and the lady Shaivya followed her lord onto the pyre.
One Mistake, Many Births
For the fault of having spoken with a heretic while under his fast, King Shatadhanu was born as a dog in the city of Vidisha. But Shaivya, who remembered her past lives, was born as the daughter of the king of Kashi, a girl blessed with every auspicious sign, and she carried the memory of her earlier birth. Turning away from marriage, she saw with her inner sight that her husband had become a dog, went to Vidisha, and fed him fine food. When the dog, having eaten, began to wag its tail and fawn upon her, the girl, overcome with sorrow, bowed to her husband and said, “Great king, remember. It was only because you spoke with a heretic after your bath at the holy ford that you were given this wretched birth.”
Hearing this, he meditated for a long while and won a rare detachment from the world, and by refusing all food he gave up the body of the dog. Then he became a jackal on Mount Kolahala; there too his sinless wife made him remember. So it went, as a wolf, a vulture, and a crow, into whatever birth he passed, she sought him out with her inner sight and awakened him to the truth: “You, at whose command every vassal lord once brought his tribute, are today a crow, eating scraps left on the ground.” At last he became a peacock. Just then King Janaka was performing an Ashvamedha, the horse sacrifice; at the moment of the avabhritha, the concluding bath of that sacrifice, the daughter of the king of Kashi bathed the peacock as well and made him remember the whole chain of his births. Then he gave up that body and was born as the son of King Janaka himself.
The Reward of Devotion
Then the girl urged her father to hold a svayamvara for her, and at that gathering she chose again, as her husband, the very man who had been her lord before. When her father passed to the next world, that same husband ruled the city of Videha, performed many sacrifices, gave freely to all who asked, and in the end laid down his beloved life in a righteous war. Even then the fair-eyed queen followed her lord onto the pyre with a glad heart. Purified in this way, the king, together with that princess, attained realms beyond decay, higher even than the world of Indra, a married bliss most difficult to win, and the fruit of the merit he had gathered in his earlier lives.
Parashara said, “O twice-born, so I have told you both the sin of holding converse with a heretic and the greatness of the bath that ends the Ashvamedha. For this reason, never speak with heretics and men of evil ways, and never so much as touch them; above all, one who has been consecrated for the daily and occasional rites, or for the performance of sacrifices, should shun their company altogether. The fellowship of such wrongdoers is a thing to be given up from a distance.”
Source: Vishnu Purana (Gita Press, Gorakhpur)