The Test of King Bhadrāyu

Ṛṣabha

Among the yogī-avatāras Śiva takes at the end of each Dvāpara age, the ninth was Ṛṣabha, who came to strengthen the path of yoga in the time of the Vyāsa named Sārasvata.

A prince named Bhadrāyu had died from the effects of poison, and his own father had cast him out. Ṛṣabha brought him back to life. When the boy turned sixteen, Ṛṣabha came to his house again. Bhadrāyu worshipped him, and Ṛṣabha taught him the dharma of a king and the yoga of kings. Then he gave him divine armour, a conch and a shining sword able to destroy any enemy, smeared his limbs with sacred ash, and gave him the strength of twelve thousand elephants.

Ṛṣabha comforted the prince and his mother, accepted their worship, and went his way. Bhadrāyu conquered his enemies, married Kīrtimālinī — daughter of King Candrāṅgada and Queen Sīmantinī — and ruled by dharma.

Spring in the forest

One spring the king went with his queen into a deep forest to enjoy its beauty. There, to test how firm his dharma was, Śiva and Pārvatī played a game. They took the form of a brahmin and his wife, and by their power made a tiger of māyā.

Not far from where the king was, the brahmin couple came running, weeping and crying out, the tiger at their heels. Save us, great king! they cried. This tiger is coming to eat us — it is like Death itself. Save us before it does!

The king heard them and snatched up his bow. But before he could do anything the tiger leapt on the brahmin's wife and seized her — and as it carried her off she was crying, “My lord! My husband! O Śambhu! O teacher of the world!”

The king struck the tiger again and again with his sharp spears, but they did it no more harm than rain does a mountain. Unhurt, the tiger ran off with the woman.

The brahmin's reproach

The brahmin wept a long time, as anyone would. Then he turned on the king. Where are your great weapons now? he asked. Your mighty bow? Your strength of twelve thousand elephants? What use is your conch, your sword, your mantras for the weapons? You could not stop one beast of the forest. To protect people from harm is a kṣatriya's highest dharma; without it, what is the use of your living? A king who cannot protect the helpless would do better to die — to take poison, or walk into fire.

Bhadrāyu was stricken. My strength has failed me today, he thought; my fame is gone, and I have fallen into great sin. I will give this grieving brahmin my own life, if that is what it takes.

He fell at the brahmin's feet. Have mercy on me, a failed kṣatriya, he said. Let go of your grief — I will give you whatever you wish. This kingdom, this queen, my own body: all of it is yours. What else do you want?

The one thing

What is a mirror to a blind man, said the brahmin, a house to a beggar, a book to a fool, or wealth to a man with no wife? My wife is dead, and I have never known the joys of marriage. Give me your queen.

A man can give away all the wealth of the earth, said the king, his kingdom, his horses and elephants, even his body — but nowhere is there a man who gives away his wife. Not a hundred penances wash away the sin of going to another man's wife.

I will burn away that sin by tapas, said the brahmin, even if it were the killing of a brahmin. Give me your wife and nothing else. Otherwise, having failed to protect the frightened, you will surely go to hell.

The king weighed it. Failing to protect the frightened was the greater sin. I will give my wife to this brahmin, he decided, and free myself of that sin — and then enter the fire at once. He lit a fire, called the brahmin, and with water in his hand, as the rite requires, gave away his queen. Then he bathed, bowed to the gods, walked three times around the fire, and fixed his mind on Śiva.

Dvijeśvara

As he was about to fall into the flames, the brahmin stopped him — and stood there as Śiva himself: five-faced and three-eyed, the crescent moon on his head, long tawny locks washed by the waves of the Gaṅgā, bright as ten million midday suns, wearing an elephant hide and a king of serpents at his throat, eight arms bearing trident, sword, khaṭvāṅga, axe, shield, deer, the gesture of fearlessness and the bow Pināka, seated on his bull, his throat dark with poison.

Flowers rained from the sky, drums of the gods sounded, apsarases danced, and Brahmā, Viṣṇu, Indra, Nārada and the sages came singing praises. The king's heart overflowed; tears soaked his body, his hair stood on end, and he praised Śiva with a choking voice.

I am pleased by your devotion, Śiva said, and more pleased still by your dharma. Ask a boon, you and your wife. I came as a brahmin only to test you. The woman the tiger took was Pārvatī herself; the tiger your arrows could not wound was made of māyā; and I asked for your wife only to test how steady you were.

My one boon, said Bhadrāyu, is that you have shown yourself to me, burning as I was in this world. But if you would give more: let my father Vajrabāhu and my mother, my wife and I serve at your feet always — and keep near you the merchant Padmākara and his son Sanaya. The queen asked the same for her own parents, Candrāṅgada and Sīmantinī. So be it, said Śiva, and vanished.

Bhadrāyu ruled for ten thousand years with undiminished strength, then gave the kingdom to his son and went to Śiva.