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Bal Kand · Episode 6 · Sargas 51–65
Shatananda tells how a king lost a fight for a wish-cow and spent ages in tapas to become a brahmarshi.
A retelling of Valmiki's Ramayana, not a translation. Where a later tradition adds to the story, we mark it.
At Mithila, the sage Shatananda had just heard the news he had waited a lifetime for. He was the eldest son of Gautama and Ahalya, and Vishwamitra told him that Rama had seen his mother and that she was united again with his father. Shatananda turned to Rama. You are fortunate, he said, to walk under this sage's protection. Hear who he is.
Vishwamitra was once a king, the son of Gadhi, of the line of Kusha. Once, touring his lands with a full army, he came to the hermitage of Vasishtha. Vasishtha welcomed the king and offered to feast his whole army. Vasishtha called Shabala, his speckled cow who could give whatever was wished for. From her came mountains of food, enough for every soldier.
The king wanted her. He offered a hundred thousand cows, and argued that such a treasure belongs to a king. Vasishtha refused. Shabala made his life possible, he said. Every offering and every rite he performed depended on her. Vishwamitra raised his price to fourteen thousand elephants, eight hundred golden chariots, eleven thousand horses and ten million cows. Vasishtha answered that she was his whole wealth, and he would not sell her.
So the king took her by force. Shabala broke from the hundreds of men who held her and ran to Vasishtha's feet. Had he abandoned her? He had not, Vasishtha said; the king was stronger, with an army behind him. Shabala disagreed. A brahmana's power, she said, is greater than a warrior's. She asked him to command her, and he did. From her lowing came armies of warriors, Pahlavas, Shakas, Yavanas and more, and they destroyed Vishwamitra's army. His hundred sons rushed at Vasishtha, and the sage burned them to ash with a single sound. The king was left like a snake without fangs.
He gave his kingdom to one of his sons and went to the Himalaya. There his austerities pleased Shiva, who gave him the whole science of archery and every weapon known to gods and demons. Swollen with pride, he went back and burned Vasishtha's hermitage. The grove fell as silent as a cremation ground. Vasishtha stood alone and raised his staff, the staff of Brahma. Vishwamitra fired weapon after weapon at him. The staff swallowed them all. Then he loosed the Brahma weapon itself, and the three worlds trembled. The staff swallowed that too. Fire streamed from Vasishtha's body until the sages begged him to calm himself.
Then Vishwamitra spoke the line the whole story turns on: "dhig balam kshatriya balam, brahma tejo balam balam". Shame on a warrior's strength; the true strength is the radiance of a brahmana's spirit. One staff had undone his whole armoury. He would quiet his heart and senses and win that power for himself. He would become a brahmarshi, a sage of the highest rank.
He went south with his queen and lived on fruits and roots for a thousand years. Then Brahma came and called him a rajarshi, a royal sage, and he hung his head in shame.
Then the story of Trishanku came to him. Trishanku was a king of Rama's own line who wanted to rise to heaven in his body. Vasishtha told him it could not be done. Vasishtha's hundred sons cursed him for going behind their father, and overnight he became a chandala, an outcaste. His ministers fled from him. Vishwamitra pitied him and promised to send him to heaven. He called the sages to a sacrifice, and he cursed Vasishtha's sons when they mocked it. The other sages agreed to take part, partly from fear of his anger. But the gods would not come for their shares, so Vishwamitra lifted Trishanku to heaven by his own power. Indra sent him tumbling back, head first. Trishanku fell crying "save me", and Vishwamitra cried "stop!". In his fury he began to make new constellations in the southern sky. The gods begged him to stop. Vishwamitra said only that he had given his word and would not let it prove false. So they agreed. Trishanku would stay in his own heaven among the new stars, upside down but shining like a god.
Vishwamitra saw that all this had hindered his austerity, and moved west to Pushkara. There a boy named Shunahshepa fell into his lap in terror. King Ambarisha needed a human victim for his sacrifice, because Indra had stolen the animal. He had bought the boy, the middle son of the sage Richika. Vishwamitra was the boy's uncle, and he asked his own sons to take the boy's place. They refused with contempt, and he cursed them too. Then he taught the boy two hymns. Tied to the sacrificial post, Shunahshepa sang them, and Indra, pleased, gave him long life.
After another thousand years Brahma came and called him a rishi, a sage. Then the apsara Menaka came to bathe in the lake. He fell under desire, and ten years passed like a single day and night. When he woke to it, he saw the gods' scheme, yet he sent the trembling Menaka away gently. He went north to the river Kaushiki for a thousand years more, and Brahma named him a maharshi, a great sage. If only you had called me a brahmarshi, Vishwamitra said. Brahma told him plainly that he had not yet conquered his senses.
So he stood with arms raised, living on air, among five fires in summer and in water through the winter. Indra sent the apsara Rambha, and came with her as a cuckoo singing in a spring tree. Vishwamitra saw the trick and cursed Rambha to stand as a stone until a brahmana released her. At once he regretted it. His anger had spent his austerity again. He vowed never to give way to anger and never to speak, and to stop even his breath until he had won what he sought.
In the east he kept silence for a thousand years until he was like a log of wood. As he sat down at last to eat, Indra came disguised as a brahmana and asked for food. Vishwamitra gave him all of it, said nothing and went hungry. He went back to holding his breath. Smoke rose from his head until the three worlds seemed to burn. The gods ran to Brahma. Nothing could tempt or anger him now, they said, and no flaw was left in him. If he was not given what he wished, he would burn the worlds.
So Brahma came and greeted him as a brahmarshi. Vishwamitra asked for two things. Let the sacred syllables and the Vedas accept him. And let Vasishtha, the son of Brahma, acknowledge him. Vasishtha came, made friends with his old enemy, and said it himself: you are a brahmarshi. Vishwamitra honoured him in turn.
Shatananda finished, and Janaka said he could listen forever, but the sun was sinking and the evening rites were near. Rama and Lakshmana walked back to their camp with the sage they now knew. He had been a king, and he had become, by his own long effort, what no army could have made him.
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