by Anita Nair
Brahma stared at him in shock. Everyone knew that Sati was dead and Shiva didn’t have a wife. So how would he have a son? But Brahma knew he was trapped and had to grant Taraka his wish.
As soon as he had obtained the boon, Taraka shed his ascetic clothes and began to rule Sonitapura. He was so powerful that he tyrannized both heaven and earth. He killed, looted, plundered, abducted women and stole anything that caught his eye. From Indra, he snatched his white elephant, Airavata; from the rishis, he took away Kamadhenu, the cow that yielded whatever one desired; he stole the sun god’s horses. There was no end to his crimes and all that the gods could do was watch, while Taraka continued his reign of terror, secure in his indestructibility.
What Taraka didn’t realize as he went about his reign of terror was that Shakti, Shiva’s consort who had been born as Sati first, had been born again as Parvati, the daughter of Himavat, the lord of the Himalayas. As a young girl, she had accompanied her father when he went to pay his respects to Shiva who was meditating in Kailasha. Shiva saw the beautiful girl and rebuked Himavat, ‘Do not bring any woman here. I do not want anyone or anything distracting me.’
Parvati had already lost her heart to Shiva. So she stayed behind and tried to win his love with her beauty. But Shiva remained unmoved. So she began praying. Impressed by her devotion, Shiva relented and appeared before her in disguise. As he spoke to Parvati, Shiva realized the extent of her admiration and deep love for him. Suddenly he felt a great love for her swamp him. So he shed his disguise and smiled at her.
And soon, to everyone’s delight, they were married. For from this marriage would be born Taraka’s destroyer.
How Ganesha Got His Elephant Head
Every day, before she bathed, Parvati applied sandalwood paste and cream to her body. When it was almost dry, she would peel the paste off.
One day, Parvati decided to make something from the peeled-off paste to amuse herself. She created a little man. She liked her handiwork so much that she breathed life into it.
‘Son,’ she said, ‘go, stand by the door and guard it. Do not let anyone in unless I ask you to. I do not want to be disturbed while I am bathing.’
So the little man went to stand by the door.
A little later, Shiva’s attendants came to announce that Shiva was on his way and that they would like to prepare the room in readiness for his arrival. But the little man wouldn’t let them in. When Shiva reached the palace, he discovered his attendants standing outside, wringing their hands. ‘There is this little man inside. But he only looks little. He is so powerful that he threw us all out,’ they cried.
‘Who is this creature? How dare he? Doesn’t he know who I am?’ Shiva said in a loud voice and rushed inside. But the little man wouldn’t let Shiva enter the inner rooms either.
‘My mother is having a bath. And she said she is not to be disturbed,’ he said.
‘Your mother! How is it I have a son and don’t even know of it?’ Shiva mocked.
‘I didn’t say I was your son. But she is my mother.’
Shiva was so angry with the little man’s words that he raised his trident and hurled it and the little man was decapitated. Just then Parvati emerged from her bath. She was very upset to hear of what had happened and began to wail loudly. She took the headless little man and held him close to her. ‘How could you do this to him? He is blameless. He was merely obeying my orders. How will sons ever listen to their mothers if fathers keep contradicting orders?’ she cried.
Shiva began to feel guilty. Perhaps he had acted too impulsively. To pacify Parvati, he said, ‘Don’t worry. Your son is mine too. I’ll make this all right.’
He called his attendants and asked them to bring the head of the first living creature they encountered.
As the attendants stepped out of the palace, the first creature they saw was a tusker. They brought his head back to Shiva.
The little man was given the elephant’s head and brought back to life again. And that was how Ganesha came to be the elephant-headed god.
Ganesha now had both father and mother, and he did his best to be a loving and dutiful son. One day, while Shiva was asleep, he had a visitor: a very powerful sage called Parasurama. Parasurama wanted an audience with Shiva. But Ganesha wouldn’t let him in. ‘You will have to either wait or come back later. I will not allow you to disturb my father,’ he said.
‘I’m not paying a social visit. I have something very important to discuss with him,’ Parasurama said. ‘It has to be said now and can’t wait.’
But Ganesha shook his head and wouldn’t let Parasurama go past the door.
Parasurama, who had a very short temper, decided to teach the elephant-headed god a lesson and raised his axe. As soon as Ganesha saw the axe, he knew that it was his father’s, which meant here was an important visitor, someone Shiva wouldn’t mind waking up for. ‘Wait,’ he cried. ‘I will wake up my father …’
But Parasurama had already swung his axe and Ganesha took the impact of the blow on his tusk and that was how Ganesha lost one of his tusks.
How Taraka Was Destroyed
Soon Shiva and Parvati had a son of their own. The six-faced Subramanya who rode on a peacock.
Shiva, Parvati and their sons Ganesha, the elephant-headed god, and Subramanya lived very happily in their mountain abode. Meanwhile the gods were getting restless waiting for Subramanya to destroy Taraka. However, there were no signs to indicate that Subramanya was ever going to leave home.
So they turned to Narada for help.
Narada arrived at Kailasha with a wondrous fruit. ‘My lord Shiva, I found this fruit of knowledge on my travels and thought that your children should have it.’
Shiva realized that there was some mischief hidden in this and sighed, ‘Why have you brought this to me?’
Narada smiled and said, ‘This fruit cannot be divided and has to be eaten by one person alone. Whoever eats it will become the wisest being of all. So I thought that you would be the best one to decide who is worthy of it. Here it is,’ he said, offering the fruit.
When Narada left, both the children began clamouring for the fruit that glowed a golden yellow and was said to be marvellously sweet.
Shiva didn’t know what to do. How could he choose between his sons? So he came up with an idea. ‘Since there is only one fruit, I will have to make it a contest. The one who wins will get the fruit.’
Parvati began to look worried and she said, ‘I don’t like this. One of them is going to get hurt.’
‘No, Mother. We know that only one person can have it. We’d like a contest,’ the boys said. ‘We agree!’
‘In that case,’ Shiva said, ‘the one who circles the world and comes back first gets the fruit.’
Subramanya smiled and set forth on his peacock. He knew his peacock was swift and no one would be able to beat him, especially not Ganesha who rode on a rat.
But when Subramanya returned triumphantly, he found to his shock and dismay that Ganesha was already back. ‘What is this?’ he demanded. ‘How did you circle the world and come back so quickly?’
Ganesha smiled. ‘My world is my parents. It takes no time to circle them. See …’ he said and made a full circle of his parents again.
Shiva and Parvati smiled. ‘He is right, you know. So he gets the fruit!’
But Subramanya felt cheated. ‘This is not fair. This is a trick, a wordplay, and I don’t accept this.’
Shiva and Parvati tried to persuade him to accept the decision but Subramanya stormed from there in a huff. On his way, he bumped into Taraka. The asura saw the peacock Subramanya rode on and wanted to add it to his menagerie of wondrous animals—Airavata the white elephant, Kamadhenu the cow, and the sun god’s horses. So he tried to wrest the peacock away. Subramanya, who was already angry with the world, grew even more furious at Taraka’s effrontery. How dare he, he thought, and glared at Taraka. ‘Do you think I am going to let everyone walk over me? It is time someone taught you a lesson!’
Thus began a great battle and Taraka was defeated and destroyed.
That was how Brahma’s boon that only Shiva’s son could kill Taraka was fulfilled.
What Aurva Did with His Rage
There was a king named Kritavirya who was very generous to the priests in his kingdom. The priests were known as Bhrigus, because all of them were descendants of the sage Bhargava. Such was his generosity that the Bhrigus grew very rich while the royal treasury was almost emptied out.
After Kritavirya’s death, his sons and grandsons discovered that they would soon have to go out with a begging bowl and beg for food. They appealed to the Bhrigus to help them make ends meet till such time as they recouped their fortunes.
However, the priests turned their heads away and said, ‘Do not look to us for help. We have very little money ourselves.’
‘But how can that be?’ the descendants of Kritavirya demanded. ‘We know that our father emptied out the royal treasury for you. Where did it all go?’
‘Once you make a gift of something to someone, it’s none of your business what they do with it,’ the Bhrigus said angrily.
The descendants of Kritavirya looked at each other. What were they to do now? Some of the priests, they heard, had buried their fortune.
‘There is nothing else we can do but kill them,’ one of them said.
‘Yes, that’s right,’ another said.
‘We did ask them to help us. But they refused. And as kshatriyas, it is our duty to battle for what is ours,’ another added.
The sons and grandsons of Kritavirya set out to slay every one of the Bhrigus. No one was spared, not even children in the womb. One woman, however, concealed her unborn child in a secret place.
When the kshatriyas returned to their palace, a spy came to them, ‘Your Majesties, one of the Bhrigus is still alive. It lives in its mother’s thigh.’
The descendants of Kritavirya rushed to destroy that child. Just as they arrived at his mother’s house, the boy burst out of his mother’s thigh. So bright was his radiance that the kshatriyas were blinded and the child managed to escape. As he was born from the thigh (uru), he was known as Aurva.
Aurva lived in the forest. He wanted to destroy all the kshatriyas, and so he performed terrifying penances to secure great powers. Even the gods were alarmed at what the young man was doing. But before they could intervene, something else happened.
One night, Aurva had a dream where his forefathers appeared to him. They said, ‘We understand your anger but it does not befit someone as righteous as you to expend so much energy on anger. Instead, use it to save the helpless and needy.’
Aurva woke up and resolved that he would no longer carry forth his anger. Just as he had emerged from the thigh, he produced from his own thigh the fire of his rage. He threw this into the sea where it became a being called Haya-siras, which had the face of a horse.
So great was the fury of the fire that Haya-siras cried, ‘I am hungry; let me consume the world.’ Soon, he destroyed many parts of the world with his flames.
Finally, Brahma appeared before Haya-siras and promised him a home where he would be happy. This was at the mouth of the ocean. Since then, submarine fires are called Aurva.
One of Aurva’s sons was Richika, whose son was Jamad-Agni. And it was Jamad-Agni who was Parasurama’s father.
How the Sons of Sagara Were Born
Bahu, the king of Ayodhya, was driven out of his kingdom by the Haihayas, a barbaric tribe. He took refuge in the forest with his wives. One of them soon discovered that she was pregnant but another wife was so jealous that she fed the pregnant queen a drug to prevent her from delivering the baby.
And so the baby remained in the womb for seven years.
Before the seven years were up, Bahu died. The pregnant queen wanted to join her husband on the funeral pyre. Just then, the sage Aurva arrived. He persuaded her not to do that. He said, ‘Your child will be born soon and he will be a great and noble king.’
The queen gave birth to the baby and Aurva named the child Sagara, meaning, with poison. Sagara grew up hearing tales of what happened to Bahu. He was determined to exterminate the Haihayas and win back his kingdom.
When he grew older, Aurva gave Sagara the agneyastra, a celestial fire weapon. Armed with this, Sagara defeated the Haihayas and regained his throne.
Not satisfied yet, Sagara decided to rid the world of the various barbaric tribes—the Yavanas, Sakas, Paradas, Pahlavas and Haihayas. But his family priest Vashishta asked Sagara to spare them. However, Sagara was not going to let them get away unpunished. So he said, ‘Holy Sage Vashishta, I cannot disobey your words but I will impose certain conditions on them if they wish to be spared.’
The barbarians agreed, thinking anything was better than facing death.
So the Yavanas were asked to shave their heads completely. The Sakas had to shave the upper half of their heads. The Paradas had to let their hair grow long as a woman’s and the Pahlavas had to let their beards grow.
Sagara had two wives called Sumati and Kesini. When, after many years of marriage, he didn’t have any children, he appealed to the sage Aurva for help. Aurva smiled and said, ‘Your one wife will have one son and the other sixty thousand sons. Let them choose who will have how many.’
Kesini chose to have one son, and Sumati was given the boon of sixty thousand sons.
In time, each woman delivered. Kesini gave birth to a boy who was named Asamanjas. Sumati gave birth to a gourd containing sixty thousand seeds. Sagara placed these seeds in little bowls of milk. Ten months later, each seed turned into a baby boy.
And that is how Sagara came to have sixty thousand and one sons.
Why the Ocean Came to Be Called Sagara
As long as the boys were young, King Sagara and his queens were happy. But as they started growing up, their troubles began.
Asamanjas grew to become wild and wicked. Finally, Sagara was so angry with him that he disowned the boy.
Sumati’s sixty thousand sons were no better. But they were too many in number, almost the size of an army. How could Sagara send so many of them away? Besides, he was frightened of what havoc they would cause if left to their own devices. So he kept them in his kingdom and found them numerous tasks to keep them out of trouble.
One day Sagara decided to conduct an Ashwamedha sacrifice to establish his sovereignty over the entire empire. He called his sixty thousand sons and said, ‘It is most important that nothing happens to the sacrificial horse. I would like you to guard the horse.’
The sons agreed and diligently watched over the horse. But one night, the horse disappeared.
‘Father,’ they cried, rushing to the king, ‘it can be no ordinary person who stole the horse. There were sixty thousand of us and who would dare come against us?’
The king nodded and said, ‘I know for sure the horse is not on the earth nor is it in heaven. That leaves just the netherworld. Perhaps it is somewhere there.’
So the sons began to dig deep into the infernal regions and when they had dug deep and wide, they entered the netherworld where they found the horse grazing. They saw Sage Kapila was seated close by, meditating. ‘He must be the thief,’ they said amongst themselves. ‘Look at him. He thinks no one will find out that he stole our horse.’
‘Chop his head off,’ one said.
‘Spike him with a spear,’ suggested another.
‘Club him to death,’ a third added.
Suddenly the sage opened his eyes. At one glance, he understood what Sagara’s sons were planning. He opened his eyes wide in anger. The flame of his wrath was so powerful that they were all burnt to ashes.
On earth, Sagara waited and waited for his sons to return. Finally, he despatched Ansumat, Asamanjas’s son, to look for his uncles.
When Ansumat reached the underworld, he soon discovered the remains of his uncles. The air was filled with their groans and moans as they pleaded to be released from this torment.
‘Your Holiness,’ Ansum
at appealed to the sage Kapila, ‘please forgive my uncles and restore their bodies. I wish to perform the ceremonies that will ensure their passage to the other world.’
The sage looked at the young man. After a while he spoke, ‘They will ascend to the other world only if you bring down the river of heaven to the earth. Meanwhile, take this horse and return to your grandfather.’
Ansumat returned with the horse and the sacrifice was completed.
But Sagara was much too troubled to rest in peace. ‘I had sixty thousand and one sons and none are by my side now,’ he thought. So deep was his sorrow that his tears filled the chasm his sons had dug and became an ocean. Since then, the ocean has been known as Sagara.
Why Ganga Came to Earth
After King Sagara’s death, his son Asamanjas succeeded to the throne. He was a reformed man and forgot all his wild ways. He was succeeded by his son Ansumat, who was succeeded by his son Dilipa. However, even though several generations had passed, Sagara’s sixty thousand sons were still not released from their torment.
When Dilipa’s son Bhagirath came to the throne, his great-uncles began to appear in his dreams. ‘Help us! Free us! Save us!’ they begged and pleaded. Soon, he began to hear them in his waking hours too. Everywhere that Bhagirath went, he was followed by their cries.
Finally, Bhagirath decided to try to save Sagara’s sons. He knew from his grandfather that in order to do so he would have to bring the river of heaven to the earth.
Bhagirath began a series of penances. Such were his austerities that Vishnu was moved. He told the goddess Ganga, who flowed from his toe, that she would have to go with Bhagirath and flow down to the earth.
Ganga had no option; she had to follow Bhagirath. But she was enraged at having to descend to the earth. Such was her rage that she gushed down with a huge force that would have smashed the earth to bits.