Parashara was tracing the line of Dhruva for Maitreya, the line of the boy who had won the one station in the sky that never moves, and the names came down generation by generation. Dhruva’s sons were Shishti and Bhavya, and Bhavya’s son was Shambhu. Shishti and his wife Succhaya had five sons without a flaw among them, Ripu, Ripunjaya, Vipra, Vrikala, and Vrikateja. Ripu and Brihati had the radiant Chakshusha, and Chakshusha married Pushkarini, born in Varuna’s line as a daughter of the great Prajapati Virana, and by her he had the Manu who would one day rule the sixth manvantara. That Manu, by Nadvala, the daughter of Prajapati Vairaja, had ten shining sons: Kuru the eldest, then Puru, Shatadyumna, Tapasvi, Satyavan, Shuchi, Agnishtoma, Atiratra, Sudyumna the ninth, and Abhimanyu the tenth. Kuru and Agneyi had six, Anga, Sumana, Khyati, Kratu, Angira, and Shibi. Then Parashara said a thing in passing that stopped the recital. Anga and his wife Sunitha had a son named Vena, and for the sake of offspring the rishis churned Vena’s right hand, and out of that churning came the king Vainya, famous as Prithu, who in the old days milked the earth for the good of every living thing. Maitreya could not let it pass. Why, he asked, did the great rishis churn Vena’s hand? What had happened in that house, that a son had to be made that way? Parashara took the story from its root. Sunitha was the first daughter of Mrityu, in whose house every life ends, and she had been given in marriage to Anga. Vena was her son, and the flaw of his maternal grandfather ran down into him, so that he was wicked by nature.
When the maharshis had anointed Vena king, he sent a proclamation across the whole earth. “I am Bhagavan Yajnapurusha. Who other than I can be the enjoyer of yajna and its master? So let no one, ever again, perform a yajna, or give a gift, or pour an oblation.” The fires in every house, the gifts to Brahmins, the ghee going into the flame: in one sentence he had ordered the whole traffic between earth and heaven stopped, and claimed the offerings for himself. The rishis came to the king. They praised him first, and praised him well, and only then, in soothing and sweet words, began to speak.
The Wrath of the Rishis
“Hear what we say, for the good of your kingdom, your body, and your people, and may it go well with you. We will worship Bhagavan Hari, the lord of all yajnas and of the gods, through great yajnas that run on for years, and of their fruit a sixth share will be yours. Pleased by those yajnas, Yajnapurusha Bhagavan Vishnu will fulfill every desire of yours along with ours. In whatever realm a king lets Hari, the lord of yajna, be worshiped with yajnas, Hari grants that king all he wishes.” Vena answered them. “Who is greater than I, and worthier of worship? And who is this Hari of yours, whom you hold to be the lord of yajna? Brahma, Janardana, Shambhu, Indra, Vayu, Yama, Surya, Agni, Varuna, Dhata, Pusha, the Earth, and the Moon, and every other god who has the power to curse and to bless, all of them dwell in the body of the king. The king is all the gods in one. Knowing that, do as I command. No one shall give, no one shall perform yajna, no one shall offer an oblation. Serving her husband is held to be a woman’s highest dharma; in the same way, your dharma is to obey my command.”
The rishis tried again. “Give a command by which dharma is not destroyed. This whole world is only havis transformed, the offering itself in another shape.” The maharshis explained it to him and pressed him, again and again, and Vena would not give the command. Then anger took them, and indignation with it, and they said to one another, “Kill this sinner. Kill him! This lawless man reviles Yajnapurusha, Prabhu Vishnu, who has no beginning and no end; he is not fit to be lord of the earth.” The munis struck the king down with blades of kusha grass sanctified by mantra. By the time the grass touched him he was already slain; his reviling of Bhagavan had done that.
The Coming of Nishada and Prithu
The king was dead, and the munis, looking up, saw a great dust rising on every side. They asked the people near them what it was. “The realm has no king,” the people said, “and the poor and the wretched have turned thief and begun plundering other men’s wealth. That dust is flying up from the rush of those swift robbers, snatching what they can.” The munishvaras took counsel together. Vena had died sonless, and a sonless king leaves a kingless earth, so with great care they churned his thigh for a son. Out of the churned thigh rose a man black as a burnt stump, very short, with a small face. He stood there in distress and asked the Brahmins, “What shall I do?” “Nishida,” they said. Sit. From that word he was called Nishada, and from him came the Nishadas who live in the Vindhya mountains, a people marked by sinful deeds. Through that gate all the sin of King Vena went out of him, and so the Nishadas became the destroyers of Vena’s sins.
Then the Brahmins churned his right hand, and from it came Vainya, Prithu, mighty beyond measure, blazing with his own body like fire. At that moment the first bow of all, Ajagava, fell from the sky, and divine arrows with it, and armor. Every creature rejoiced at his birth. And Vena, who had died under the kusha blades with the earth’s whole sin in him, went to svarga on the strength of that birth alone; the great-souled son had lifted his father out of the hell called Put.
For Maharaja Prithu’s consecration the oceans came, and the rivers, carrying every kind of jewel and water for the anointing, and Pitamaha Brahma came with the Angirasa gods and with all that moves and all that stands, and they performed the royal consecration of Vainya. Brahma looked at the young king’s right hand and saw the mark of the chakra on it, and knew him for a portion of Vishnu, and his joy was complete. That mark of Shri Vishnu’s chakra is on the hand of every chakravarti king, and the power of such kings is never blunted, not even by the gods. So the great knowers of dharma anointed the radiant and mighty son of Vena to the rank of rajarajeshvara, king over kings. The people his father had made miserable, he made happy; they were anurakta, devoted to him, and from that anuranjana, that gladdening of his people, the name Raja came to him. When he went out on the ocean the water stood still under him; mountains gave him way; his banner never once broke. The earth ripened grain untilled and unsown. Food was ready at a thought. Cows gave like Kamadhenu. Honey filled every leaf. On the day of Prithu’s birth Brahma had begun a yajna, the Paitamaha, and on the day of the soma-pressing a wise man rose out of the suti, the pressing-ground of the soma, and was called Suta after it; in the same great yajna the wise Magadha was born. The munis turned to the two of them. “Praise this mighty son of Vena, Maharaja Prithu. This is the work you were made for, and he is worthy of the praise.” The two joined their hands and answered all the Brahmins. “This maharaja was born only today. We know nothing he has done. No virtue of his has shown itself yet, and no fame of his has spread. Tell us, on what shall we praise him?” The rishis said, “Praise this mighty chakravarti with the deeds he will do and the virtues he will have.” The king heard this and was glad, and a thought formed in him. A man is praised for his good qualities, so I too should acquire virtues; whatever virtues these two now describe in their praise, I will take care to practice; and if they name anything faulty here, anything that ought to be given up, I will give it up. With that resolve in his mind he listened, and Suta and Magadha sang the wise son of Vena in a sweet voice, on the strength of deeds he had not yet done: truthful, generous, a keeper of the true limits, modest, friendly, forgiving, valiant, a subduer of the wicked; a knower of dharma, grateful, compassionate, sweet of speech, one who honors those who deserve it, devoted to yajna, devoted to Brahmins, honored among the good, and the same in his dealings with enemy and friend. The king held those virtues in his heart, and lived by them.
The Milking of the Earth
Prithu ruled, and guarded the earth, and performed great yajnas one after another, with great dakshinas given at the close of each. Then the people came to him. In the kingless time the oshadhis had perished, and the people were hollow with hunger; they bowed, and when he asked why they had come they told him. “In the time without a king the earth drew all the oshadhis back into herself, and so your people are perishing. The Creator made you our Prajapati, the one who gives us our lives. We are tormented by the sickness of hunger. Give us the oshadhis that keep us alive.” Maharaja Prithu heard them out, took up his divine bow Ajagava and his divine arrows, and in a great anger went after the earth. She was terrified. She took the form of a cow and fled, to Brahmaloka and through every world there is, and wherever the bearer of beings went, she saw the son of Vena behind her with his weapon drawn.
At last, trembling, and wanting only to be saved from the arrows of that mighty king, the earth spoke. “Do you not see the great sin of killing a woman, that you are so set on killing me?” Prithu said, “Where the killing of one evildoer brings happiness to many, that killing is merit.” The earth said, “If you would kill me for the good of the people, then when I am dead, what will hold your people up?” Prithu said, “Vasudha, when my arrows have killed you for breaking my command, I will hold these people up by the power of my own yoga.”
The earth bowed again to the lord of the earth, shaking with fear, and said, “Every work begun with effort succeeds. So let me tell you a means, and do it if you wish. All the oshadhis I have digested I can give back as milk, if you want them so. For the good of the people, make some calf, so that affection for it will let my milk down. And make me level everywhere, so that I can bring forth in every place the milk that is the seed of the best oshadhis.” Maharaja Prithu took the tip of his bow to the mountains. He tore them up by the hundreds and the thousands and heaped them in one place. Before that day the earth had not been level, and there had been no ordered division of towns and villages on her; there had been no order of food, no keeping of cattle, no farming, no trade. All of that began in the time of Vena’s son Prithu.
Wherever the ground was level, there the people chose to live. Until then they had eaten only fruit and roots, and with the oshadhis gone even those had become very scarce. Then King Prithu made Svayambhuva Manu the calf, and with his own hand he milked from the earth every kind of grain, for the good of the people, and on that food the people live even now. After him the gods milked her, and the munis, the daityas, the rakshasas, the mountains, the gandharvas, the serpents, the yakshas, the pitrs, each drawing the milk he desired into a vessel of his own, and for each of them the milker and the calf were of his own kind.
Because Maharaja Prithu gave her life, he became the earth’s father, and so the all-bearing one took the name Prithvi, after him; Gita Press’s note counts five who are called father, the begetter, the giver of the sacred thread, the giver of food, the protector from fear, and the giver of learning. This earth, risen from the feet of Bhagavan Vishnu, is the bearer of all, the maker, the support, and the nourisher. Such was the power and the might of Vena’s son Prithu in the old days, and because he delighted his people he was called Raja. Whoever recites this story of Maharaja Prithu, no evil deed of his bears fruit; and the story of Prithu’s birth and his power, once heard, lays every bad dream to rest.
Source: Vishnu Purana (Gita Press, Gorakhpur)